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AUTHOR OF 

THIS MORTAL COIL,’ ‘ BLOOD ROYAL,’ ‘ THE SCALIAAVAG,’ ETC. 


i~-' 


F. TENNYSON NEELY 
Chicago. Publisher: New York. 

1894 


2 ^ 


PZs 


Copyright at Washington. D. C., 
September, 1894, 

BY 

F. TENNYSON NEELY. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I. AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING 

II. MRS. HESSLEGRAVE ‘ AT HOME ’ 

III. MILLIONAIRE AND SAILOR 

IV. FRATERNAL AMENITIES 

V. A CHANCE ENCOUNTER 

VI. A CASE OF CONSCIENCE 

VII. MAKING THEIR MINDS UP 

VIII. A DIGRESSION - 

IX. BY THE BLUE ADRIATIC 

X. VISITORS IN VENICE - 
' XI. MRS. HESSLEGRAVE MISAPPREHENDS - 
XII. A mother’s DILEMMA 

XIII. A MISSING LOVER 

XIV. THE AXMINSTER PEERAGE 

XV. IN A CATHEDRAL CITY 

XVI. WITHOUT SECURITY - ~ 

XVII. THE HEART OF THE DECOY DUCK 
XVIII. PRECONTRACT OF MATRIMONY 

XIX. RE-ENTER MORTIMER - 


PAGE 

1 

12 

24 

36 

49 

60 

73 

83 

93 

104 

115 

127 

140 

151 

161 

172 

184 

194. 

204 


VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

XX. A FAMILY COUNCIL - 

- 

- 

PAGE 

- 214 

XXI. THE WISE WOMAN - 

- 

- 

- 225 

XXII. ISLES OF WINTER 

- 

- 

- 236 

XXIII. A LITERARY DEBUT - 

- 

- 

- 245 

XXIV. AN ANGEL FROM THE WEST - 

- 

- 

- 256 

XXV. THE MEETING 

- 

- 

- 268 

XXVI. A QUESTION OF AUTHORSHIP 

- 

- 

- 278 

XXVII. CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES - 

- 

- 

289 

XXVIII. MORTIMER STRIKES HOME - 

- 

- 

- 298 

XXIX. Arnold’s masterpiece 

- 

- 

- 310 

XXX. WHAT ALWAYS HAPPENS 

_ 

- 

- 320 


AT MARKET VALUE 


CHAPTEE I. 

AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING. 

’Twas a dejected, dispirited, sheepish-looking throng 
that gathered, one black Wednesday, round the big 
back door in Burlington Gardens. For it was Taking- 
away Day at the Koyal Academy. 

For weeks before that annual holocaust, many 
anxious hearts have waited and watched in eager 
suspense for the final verdict of the Hanging Com- 
mittee. To hang or not to hang — that is the ques- 
tion. But on Taking-away Day the terrible fiat at 
last arrives ; the Committee regret (on a litho- 
graphed form) that want of space compels them to 
decline Mr. So-and-so’s oil-painting, ‘ The Fall of 
Babylon,’ or Miss Whatshername’s water-colour, ‘ By 
Leafy Thames,’ and politely inform them that they 
may remove them at their leisure, and at their own 
expense, from Burlington House by the back door 
aforesaid. Then follows a sad ceremony : the rejected 
flock together to recover their slighted goods, and 
keep one another company in their hour of humilia- 
tion. It’ is a community of grief, a fellowship in 

1 


2 


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misery. Each is only sustained from withering under 
the observant eyes of his neighbour by the inward 
consciousness that that neighbour himself, after all, is 
in the self-same box, and has been the recipient that 
day of an identical letter. 

Nevertheless it was some consolation to Kathleen 
Hesslegrave in her disappointment to observe the 
varying moods and shifting humours of her fellow- 
sufferers among the rejected. She had a keen sense of 
the ridiculous, and it lightened her trouble somewhat 
to watch among the crowd the different funny ways in 
which other people bore or concealed their own dis- 
appointment for her edification. There were sundry 
young men, for example, with long hair down their 
backs and loose collars of truly Byronic expansiveness, 
whom Kathleen at once recognised as unacclaimed 
geniuses belonging to the very newest and extremest 
school of modern impressionism. They hailed from 
Newlyn. These lordly souls, budding Eaphaels of the 
future, strolled into the big room with a careless air of 
absolute unconcern, as who should wonder they had 
ever deigned to submit their immortal works to the 
arbitrament of a mere everyday Hanging Committee ; 
and they affected to feel very little surprise indeed at 
finding that a vulgar bourgeois world had disdained 
their efforts. They disdained the vulgar bourgeois 
world in return with contempt at compound interest 
visibly written on their aesthetic features. Others, 
older and shabbier, slunk in unobserved, and 
shouldered their canvases, mostly unobtrusive land- 
scapes, with every appearance of antique familiarity. 
It was not the first time they had received that insult. 
Yet others again — and these were chiefly young girls 
— advanced blushing and giggling a little from sup- 


AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING 


3 


pressed nervousness, to recover with shame their 
unvalued property. Here and there, too, a big 
burly-shouldered man elbowed his way through the 
crowd as though the place belonged to him, and 
hauled off his magnum opus (generally a huge field of 
historical canvas, ‘ King Edward at Calais,’ or, 
‘ The Death of Attila ’) with a defiant face which 
seemed to bode no good to the first Academi- 
cian he might chance to run against on his way 
down Bond Street. A few, on the contrary, were 
anxious to explain, with unnecessary loudness of 
voice, that they hadn’t sent in themselves at all this 
year ; they had called for a picture by a friend — that 
was all, really. Kathleen stood aside and watched 
their varied moods with quiet amusement; it dis- 
tracted her attention for the time from her own p(;ipr 
picture. 

At last she found herself almost the only person 
remaining out of that jostling crowd, with a sailor- 
looking man, brown and bronzed, beside her. 

‘ “ In a Side Canal ; Kathleen Hesslegrave.” Yes, 
this is yours, mum,’ the porter said gruffly. ‘But 
you’ll want a man to take it down to the cab for 
you.’ 

Kathleen glanced at her little arms ; they were not 
very strong, to be sure, though plump and shapely. 
Then she looked at the porter. But the porter stood 
unmoved. With a struggling little effort Kathleen 
tried to lift it. ‘ In a Side Canal ’ was a tolerably 
big picture, and she failed to manage it. The sailor- 
looking body by her side raised his hat with a smile. 
His face was brown and weather-beaten, but he had 
beautiful teeth, very white and regular, and when he 
smiled he showed them. He looked like a gentleman. 


4 


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too, though he was so roughly dressed, with a sailor’s 
roughness. ‘ May I help you ?’ he asked, as he raised 
his hat. ‘We two seem to be the last — I suppose 
because we were more modestly retiring than the rest 
of them. This is a good big picture.’ 

‘ Yes,’ Kathleen answered regretfully. ‘ And it took 
me a good long time to paint it.’ 

The sailor-looking young man glanced at the subject 
carelessly. 

‘Oh, Venetian!’ he cried. ‘Why, how odd! 
We’re neighbours. Mine’s Venetian, too. The very 
next canal ; I painted it quite close to San Giovanni e 
Paolo.’ 

‘ So did I,’ Kathleen exclaimed, brightenmg up, a 
little surprised at the coincidence. 

‘ When w^ere you there ?’ 

‘ Last autumn.’ 

‘ Then I wonder we never met,’ the young man put 
in with another sunshiny smile. ‘ I was working on 
that canal every day of my life from November to 
January.’ 

He w^as carrying her picture as he spoke towards the 
door for a cab. 

‘ Oh, how funny !’ Kathleen exclaimed, looking 
closer at his features. ‘ It’s queer we never hap- 
pened to knock up against one another. And w^e 
knew so many people in Venice, too. Used you ever 
to go to the Martindales’ palazzo 

The young man smiled once more, this time a 
restrained smile of deprecatory modesty. If his teeth 
w’ere good, he certainly lost no opportunity of show- 
ing them. 

‘ No ; 1 didn’t know the Martindales,’ he answ^ered 
very hastily, as if anxious to disclaim the social 


AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING 5 

honour thus thrust upon him, for the Martindales 
lead Anglo-Venetian society. 

‘ Then, perhaps, the Chericis T Kathleen interposed 
once more, with that innate human desire we all of us 
feel to find some common point with every stranger 
we run against. 

‘No,’ her new friend replied, looking graver now. 
‘ Nor Countess Cherici either. In point of fact, I may 
say — except one or two other painter-fellows, if I can 
call myself a painter — I know nobody in Venice. I 
was not in society.’ 

‘Oh!’ Kathleen answered, dropping her voice 
a little ; for, though she was a sensible girl, in the 
circle she had been brought up in, not to be in society 
was considered almost criminal. 

The young man noted the sudden drop in her voice, 
and a curious little line developed itself for a second 
near the corners of his mouth — an upward line, 
curving sideways obliquely. It was clear he was 
amused by her altered demeanour. But he made no 
reply. He only bore the picture gravely to the door 
of the Academy, and there tried to call the attention 
of some passing hansom. But it was clearly useless. 
They were all engaged already, and the crush at the 
door was still so great there could be no chance of 
hiring one for another ten minutes. So the young 
man laid down the big picture near the door, with its 
face propped up against the entrance wall, and saying 
quietly, ‘ I’ll help you in with it by-and-by when I see 
any chance,’ went back to the inner room to recover 
his own Venetian canvas. 

He was gone a minute ; and when he returned, 
Kathleen could see he almost ostentatiously set his 
own picture down at some distance from hers, as 


6 


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though he was’ little anxious to continue the conversa- 
tion. She was sorry for that. He had seemed so 
eager to help her with such genuine kindliness ; and 
she was afraid he saw his last remark about not being 
in society had erected an instinctive class-barrier 
between them. So, after a moment’s hesitation, she 
left her own work to take care of itself, and took a 
step or two forward toward her new acquaintance’s 
ambitious canvas. ‘ You saw mine,’ she said apolo- 
getically, by way of reopening conversation : ‘ May I 
see yours? One likes to sit in judgment on the 
Hanging Committee.’ 

The young man seemed pleased. He had a speak- 
ing face, and was handsome withal, with a seafaring 
handsomeness. ‘ Oh yes, if you like,’ he answered ; 

‘ though I’m afraid you won’t care for it.’ And he 
turned the painted face of the picture towards her. 

‘ But why on earth didn’t they take it ?’ Kathleen 
cried spontaneously, almost as soon as she saw it. 

‘ What lovely light on the surface of the water ! And 
oh ! the beautiful red sails of those Chioggia fishing- 
boats !’ 

‘ I’m glad you like it,’ the stranger replied, with 
evident pleasure, blushing like a girl. ‘ I don’t care 
for criticism as a rule, but I love sincerity ; and the 
way you spoke showed me at once you were really 
sincere about it. That’s a very rare quality — about 
the hardest thing to get in this world, I fancy.’ 

‘ Yes, I was quite sincere,’ Kathleen answered with 
truth. ‘ It’s a beautiful picture. The thing I can’t 
understand is why on earth they should have re- 
jected it.’ 

The young man shrugged his shoulders and made 
an impatient gesture. ‘ They have so many pictures 


AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING 


7 


to judge in so short a time,’ he answered with a 
tolerance which Avas evidently habitual to him. ‘ It 
doesn’t do to expect too much from human nature. 
All men are fallible, with perhaps the trifling exception 
of the Pope. We make mistakes ourselves, some- 
times; and in landscape especially they have such 
miles to choose from. Not,’ he went on after a short 
pause, * that I mean to say I consider my own fishing- 
boats good enough to demand success, or even to 
deserve it. I’m the merest beginner. I was thinking 
only of the general principle.’ 

‘ I’m afraid you’re a dreadful cynic,’ Kathleen put 
in with a little wave of her pretty gloved hand, just 
to keep up the conversation. She was still engaged 
in looking close into the details of his rejected handi- 
craft. Though deficient in technique, it had marked 
imagination. 

The stranger smiled a broader and more genial 
smile than ever. ‘ Oh no, not a cynic, I hope,’ he 
answered with emphasis, in a way that left no doubt 
about his own sincerity. ‘ It isn’t cynical, surely, to 
recognise the plain facts of human nature. We’re all 
of us prone to judge a good deal by the most super- 
ficial circumstances. Suppose now, you and I were 
on the Hanging Committee ourselves : just at first, of 
course, we’d be frightfully anxious to give every work 
the fullest and fairest consideration. Kesponsibility 
would burden us. We would weigh each picture well, 
and reject it only after due deliberation. But human 
nature can’t keep up such a strain as that for long 
together. We’d begin very fresh, but towards the 
end of the day we’d be dazed and tired. We’d say : 
“ Whose is that ? Ah ! by So-and-so’s son; a brother 
Pi. A. I know his father. Well, it’s not badly painted; 


8 


AT MARKET VALUE 


we’ll let it in, I think. What do you say, Jiggamaree?” 
And then with the next: “Who’s this by, porter? 
Oh, a fellow called Smith ! Not very distinctive, is 
it ? H’m ; we’ve rejected every bit as good already ; 
space is getting full. Well, put it away for the 
present, Jones : we’ll mark it doubtful.” That’s 
human nature, after all ; and what we each of us feel 
we would do ourselves, we can none of us fairly blame 
in others.’ 

‘But I call that cynicism,’ Kathleen persisted, look- 
ing up at him. 

If the stranger was a cynic, he had certainly caught 
the complaint in its most genial form, for he answered 
at once with perfect good-humour : ‘ Oh no, I don’t 
think so. It’s mere acceptance of the facts of life. 
The cynic assumes a position of censure. He implies 
that human nature does this, that, or the other thing, 
which lie^ with his higher and purer moral sense, 
would never so much as dream of doing. Knowledge 
of the world is not necessarily cynicism. The cynical 
touch is added to it by want of geniality and of human 
tolerance. It is possible for us to know what men and 
women are like, and yet to owe them no grudge for it 
— to recognise that, after all, we are all of us au fond 
very nearly identical.’ 

He spoke like a gentleman and a man of culture. 
Kathleen was a little surprised, now she heard him 
talk, to find him so much more educated than she 
had at first fancied. For his rough exterior had 
rather prejudiced her against the sailor - looking 
stranger. But his voice was so pleasant, and his 
smile so frank, that she really quite admired him, in 
spite of his sentiments. She was just going to answer 
him, in defence of human nature, against his supposed 


AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING 


9 


strictures, when a voice in the crowd close by dis- 
tracted her attention. ‘ Why, Miss Hesslegrave, there 
you are !’ it cried. ‘ I wondered if I should see you. 
Oh, yes, indeed, I also am among the killed and 
wounded. IVe got no fewer than three of them. 
What, all my pretty ones ! A perfect massacre of the 
innocents. But there, the Hanging Committee is as 
bad as its name. No respecter of persons. Euthless, 
ruthless, ruthless ! And Arnold Willoughby, too ! 
Well, Willoughby, how are you? I really didn’t 
know you two knew each other.’ 

‘We don’t,’ Kathleen answered, taking the new- 
comer’s hand. ‘We’ve only just met here. But 
your friend’s been so kind. He’s carried my poor 
rejected picture down for me, and we’re waiting for a 
cab. It is such a crush — and all of us trying to pre- 
tend we don’t mind about it !’ 

‘ Who’s cynical now ?’ the stranger ppt in, with a 
mischievous twinkle in his eye. ‘ I do mind very 
much ; it’s bread and butter to me ; and I don’t pre- 
tend to conceal it. But I’ll leave you now. I see 
you’ve found a friend, and I can be of no further 
service to you.’ He raised his hat with more grace 
than Kathleen could have expected from those rough 
sailor-like clothes : ‘ Good-bye,’ he said ; ‘ Mortimer, 
you’ll see after the picture.’ 

The American, for he was one, nodded a polite 
assent. 

‘ How lucky I am. Miss Hesslegrave,’ he murmured, 

‘ to have met you by accident ! And talking to Wil- 
loughby, too ! You can’t think what a conquest that 
is.’ He glanced with some amusement after the 
stranger’s retreating figure. ‘You know,’ he said, 
lowering his voice, ‘Willoughby’s a professed miso- 


lO 


AT MARKET VALUE 


gynist, or next door to one, anyhow ; this is the very 
first time I’ve ever seen him speaking to a lady. As 
a rule, he runs away from them the moment he sees 
one. It was conjectured in Venice among the fellows 
who knew him that he had been what school-girls 
describe as ‘‘crossed in love,” he avoided them so 
carefully. I suppose the truth is one of them must 
have jilted him.’ 

‘ He was very kind to me,' Kathleen interposed 
quietly. ‘ He saw me struggling with this great big 
canvas, and he came up to help me, and was so nice 
and polite about it.’ 

‘ Ah yes,’ the American answered, a little lower 
than before, with a meaning glance. ‘ Kind to you, 
Miss Hesslegrave ; that doesn’t prove much ; even a 
confirmed misogynist could hardly be less ; we must 
allow for circumstances.’ 

Kathleen coloured a little, but didn’t altogether dis- 
like the compliment, for Mortimer was rich — very rich 
indeed — and the acknowledged catch of the artistic 
American colony in Paris. But she turned the subject 
hastily. 

‘ Where did you meet him ?’ she asked, looking 
down at her pretty shoes. ‘He’s so rough-looking 
outside ; yet he seems a gentleman.’ 

‘Oh, he is a gentleman, undoubtedly,’ Mortimer 
answered with true American candour ; ‘ a born 
gentleman, though not quite the conventional one. 
He’s as poor as a church mouse, and he’s been a 
sailor, I fancy.’ 

‘ Who is he ?’ Kathleen asked with evident interest. 

‘ Ah, who is he ? That’s the question,’ Mortimer 
answered mysteriously. ‘ He’s a dark horse, I ima^e. 
I picked him up accidentally last autumn in Venice. 


AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING 


I 


He used to lodge at a tiny Italian trattoria^ down a 
side canal — not far from my palazzo — and live off 
fritura — you know the sort of stuff— fish, flesh, and 
fowl, three meals a penny.’ 

‘How brave of him !’ Kathleen said simply. ‘ He 
looks very nice. And all for art’s sake, I suppose, 
Mr. Mortimer ?’ 

The American laughed. 

‘All for poverty’s sake, I imagine,’ he answered 
with candour. ‘ So he told me himself. He didn’t 
care so much about art, he said, as about earning a 
livelihood ; and I really believe he starves in his den 
when he sells no pictures.’ 

‘ Why did he run away from us ?’ Kathleen asked, 
peering around into the crowd to see if she could 
discover him. 

‘ Well, to tell you the truth,’ Mortimer replied, ‘ I 
think it was mainly because he saw me come up ; and 
also because of the faint intonation in your voice when 
you said, “ We don’t know one another.” Willoughby’s 
a misogynist, as I told you, and he’s also sensitive, 
absurdly sensitive — he might almost be one of my 
fellow-countrymen. I don’t doubt, when you said 
that, he took it as his dismissal. He understood you 
to mean, “Now I’ve done, sir, with you. Here’s 
somebody else I know. You may go about your busi- 
ness.” And being a person who always feels acutely 
when he’s de trop, he went about his business at once, 
accordingly.’ 

‘ I’m sorry,’ Kathleen put in ; ‘ for I really rather 
liked him.’ 

‘Oh, he’s a thorough good sort,’ the American 
answered quickly. ‘ He’s sterling, Willoughby is. 
Not at all the sort of man that’s given away with a 


12 


AT MARKET VALUE 


pound of tea. None of your cotton-backed gentlemen. 
You may test him all through, an.d you’ll find from 
head to foot he’s the genuine material.’ 

‘ Couldn’t you bring him with you to tea, this after- 
noon ?’ Kathleen suggested, half hesitating. ‘ I think 
mamma sent you an- ‘at home’ card for Wednesdays.’ 

‘Oh, I’m coming,’ the American answered with 
prompt acquiescence ; ‘ I have not forgotten it. Miss 
Hesslegrave ; is it likely I should ? Well, no, I don’t 
think so. But as for Willoughby — ah, there you 
know, that’s quite a different matter. I don’t suppose 
anything on earth would induce him to go to an ‘ at 
home ’ of anybody’s. He’d say it was hollow ; and he 
despises hollowness. He’ll never go in for anything 
but realities. To tell you the truth, I think the only 
reason he spoke to you at all at the Academy here this 
morning was because he saw a chance of being of 
some practical service to you ; and the moment the 
practical service was performed, he took the very first 
opportunity that offered to slip off and leave you. 
That’s Willoughby all over. He cares for nothing at 
all in life except its realities.’ 


CHAPTEK II. 

MRS. HESSLEGRAVE ‘ AT HOME.’ 

That same afternoon, Mrs. Hesslegrave’s little rooms 
in a side street in Kensington were inconveniently 
crowded. Mrs. Hesslegrave would have been wounded 
to the core had it been otherwise. For, though she 
was poor, she was still ‘in Society.’ Every second 
Wednesday through the season Mrs. Hesslegrave re- 


MRS, HESSLEGRAVE ^ AT HOME 


13 


ceived ; sooner would she have gone without breakfast 
and dinner than have failed to fill her rooms for after- 
noon tea with ‘ the Best People.’ Indeed, Mrs. Hessle- 
grave was the exact antipodes of Arnold Willoughby. 
’Twas for the appearances of life she lived, not for its 
realities. ‘ It would look so well,’ ‘it would look so 
bad ’ — those were the two phrases that rose oftenest 
to her lips, the two phrases that summed up in anti- 
thetical simplicity her philosophy of conduct. 

Therefore it was a small matter to Mrs. Hesslegrave 
that her friends were jostling and hustling each other 
to their mutual inconvenience in her tiny lodgings. 
Their discomfort counted to her for less than nothing. 
It looks so well to have your ‘ at homes ’ attended. It 
looks so bad to see them empty, or, worse still, filled 
by the wrong sort of people. 

‘ Oh, here’s that dear Mr. Mortimer !’ Mrs. Hessle- 
grave gushed forth, rising with empressement as the 
young American entered. ‘ How do you do, Mr. 
Mortimer ? How good of you to come ! Kathleen, 
will you take Mr. Mortimer into the other room to 
have a cup of tea ? I’ll introduce him to you. Lady 
Barnard, as soon as ever he comes back. Such a 
charming young man !’ Mrs. Hesslegrave had 
smoothed her path in life by the judicious use of that 
one word charming. ‘ He’s an American, you know, 
of course, but not the least like most of them ; so 
cultivated and nice, and belongs, I am told, to a first- 
rate old Philadelphia family. Eeally, it’s quite sur- 
prising what charming Americans one meets about 
nowadays — the best sort, I mean — the ladies and 
gentlemen. You wouldn’t believe it, but this young 
man hasn’t the slightest Yankee accent ; he speaks 
like an English officer.’ Mrs. Hesslegrave’s late 


14 


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lamented husband had been a General of Artillery, 
and she looked upon an English officer accordingly 
as the one recognised model of deportment and char- 
acter in the two hemispheres. ‘ Besides, he’s very 
well off indeed, they tell me ; he’s iron in the States, 
and an artist in Paris ; but he practises art for art’s 
sake only, and not as a means of livelihood, like my 
poor dear Kathleen. Such a delightful young man ! 
You really must know him.’ 

Lady Barnard smiled, and in less than ten minutes 
was deep in conversation with the ‘ charming ’ Ameri- 
can. And charming he was, to say the truth ; for 
once in its life, Mrs. Hesslegrave’s overworked adjec- 
tive of social appreciation was judiciously applied to 
a proper object. The rich young American had all 
the piquant frankness and cordiality of his nation, 
with all the grace and tact of Parisian society. More- 
over, he was an artist ; and artists must be surely poor 
creatures to start with if the mere accidents of their 
profession don’t make them interesting. He was 
chatting away most brightly to Lady Barnard about 
the internal gossip of Parisian studios, when the door 
opened once more, and the neat-capped maid with the 
long white apron announced in her clearest official 
voice, ‘ Canon and Mrs. Valentine !’ 

Their hostess rose once more quite effusively from 
her place, and advanced towards the new-comers with 
her best smile of welcome. Mrs. Hesslegrave had no 
fewer than seven distinct gradations of manner for 
receiving her guests; and you could gather at once 
their relative importance in the social scale by observ- 
ing as they arrived with which of the seven Mrs. 
Hesslegrave greeted them. It was clear, therefore, 
that the Valentines were people of distinction : for 


MRS. HESSLEGRAVE ^ AT HOME’ 


15 


she moved forward towards the Canon and his wife 
at the door with the sweetest inclination of that white- 
haired head. 

‘Oh, how good of you to come!’ she cried, clasp- 
ing the lady’s hand in both her own. ‘ I know. Canon 
Valentine, how very much engaged you are ! It is so 
sweet of you I’ 

The Canon was a fat little bald-headed man, rather 
waistless about the middle, and with a self-satisfied 
smirk on his smooth red countenance. He had the 
air of a judge of port and horses. In point of fact, 
he was a solitary survivor into our alien epoch of the 
almost extinct type of frankly worldly parson. 

‘ Well, we are rather driven, Mrs. Hesslegrave,’ he 
admitted with a sigh — heartless critics might almost 
have called it a puff — pulling his white tie straight 
with ostentatious scrupulosity. ‘ The beginning of 
the season, you see — torn by conflicting claims ; all 
one’s engagements before one ! But I’ve heard such 
good news, such delightful news ! I’ve come here 
straight, you know, from dear Lady Axminster’s.’ 

‘ Ah, yes,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave echoed, glancing 
askance towards the American to see if he was 
listening. ‘ She is so charming, isn’t she — Lady. 
Axminster ?’ 

‘ Quite so,’ the Canon answered. ‘ A very dear old 
cousin of mine, as you know. Lady Barnard ; and so 
much cut up about this dreadful business of her 
scapegrace grandson. Well, we’ve got a clue to him 
at last ; we really believe we’ve got a genuine clue to 
him.’ 

‘ No, you don’t mean to say so I’ Mrs. Hesslegrave 
cried, deeply interested. You would have believed 
Lady Axminster was her dearest friend, instead of 


AT MARKET VALUE 


‘i6 

being merely a distant bowing acquaintance. ‘ I thought 
he had gone off to South Africa or somewhere.’ 

‘ What ? A romance of the peerage ?’ the young 
American asked, pricking up his ears. ‘ A missing 
lord? A coronet going begging? Lost, stolen, or 
strayed, the heir to an earldom ! Is that about the 
size of it ?’ 

‘Precisely,’ the Canon answered, turning towards 
him, half uncertain whether it was right to encourage 
so flippant a treatment of a serious subject. ‘ You’ve 
heard of it, no doubt — this unfortunate young man’s 
very awkward disappearance? It’s not on his own 
account, of course, that the family mind ; he might 
have gone off if he chose, and nobody would have 
noticed it. He was always a strange, eccentric sort 
of person ; and for my part, as I say often to dear 
Lady Axminster, the sooner they could get rid of him 
out of the way, the better. But it’s for Algy she 
minds ; poor Algy Kedburn, who, meanwhile, is being 
kept out of the family property.’ 

‘ Well, but this is very interesting, you know,’ 
Kufus Mortimer interjected, as the Canon paused. ‘ I 
haven’t heard about this. Tell me how it all hap- 
pened, and why you want a clue. A missing link or 
a missing earl is always so romantic.’ 

The Canon leaned back luxuriously in his easy-chair 
and sipped at the cup of tea Kathleen Hesslegrave 
had brought him. 

‘ Thank you, my dear,’ he said, rolling it critically 
on his palate. ‘ One more lump, if you please ; I 
always had a sweet tooth, though Sir Everard has 
just cut me off my sugar. Says I must take sac- 
charin ; but there isn’t any flavour in it. I’m thankful 
to say, however, he hasn’t cut me off my port, which 


MRS. HESSLEGRAVE ^ AT HOME^ 17 

is always something. Said he to me : ''I’ll tell you 
what it is, Canons if you drink port, you’ll have the 
gout ; but if you don’t drink port, the gout ’ll have 
you'' So that’s highly satisfactory.’ And the bald- 
headed old gentleman took another sip at the sweet 
syrup in his cup, of which the tea itself only formed 
the medium. 

' But how about Lord Axminster ?’ the American 
persisted, with the insistence of his countrymen. 

'Oh, ah, poor Axminster!’ the Canon went on 
reflectively, stirring the liquid in his cup with his 
gilt-bowled apostle spoon. (Mrs. Hesslegrave was by 
no means rich, and she lived in lodgings, to her 
shame, during her annual visit to London, but she 
flattered herself she knew the proper way to pro- 
vide afternoon tea for the best society.) ' I was 
coming to that. It’s a sad, bad story. To begin 
with, you know, every romance of the peerage in- 
volves a pedigree. Well, old Lady Axminster — 
that’s my cousin, the dowager — she had two sons; 
the eldest was the late earl ; Mad Axminster they 
called him, who married a gipsy girl, and was the 
father of the present man, if he is the present man — 
that is to say if he’s still living.’ 

' The missing lord, in fact ?’ Eufus Mortimer put 
in interrogatively. 

' Quite so,’ the Canon assented — ' the missing lord ; 
who is, therefore, you will see, my cousin Maria’s 
grandchild. But Maria never cared for the lad. 
From his childhood upwards, that boy Bertie had 
ideas and habits sadly unbefitting that station in life, 
et caetera, et caetera. He had always a mania for 
doing some definite work in the world, as he called 
it — soiling his hands in the vineries, or helping the 

2 


i8 AT MARKET VALUE 

stable-boys, or mending broken chairs, or pottering 
about the grounds with an axe or a shovel. He had 
the soul of an under- gardener. His father was just 
as bad ; picked up wonderful notions about equality, 
and Christian brotherhood, and self-help, and so forth. 
But it came out worse in Bertie — his name was 
Albert ; I suppose the gipsy mother had something 
or other to do with it. I’m a great believer in 
heredity, you know. Lady Barnard, heredity’s every- 
thing. If once you let any inferior blood like 
that into a good old family, there’s no knowing 
what trouble you may be laying in store for your- 
self.’ 

‘But Galton says,’ the young American was bold 
enough to interpose, ‘ that all the vigour and energy 
of the British aristocracy — when they happen to have 
any — comes really from their mesalliances ; from the 
handsome, strong, and often clever young women of 
the lower orders — actresses and so forth — whom they 
occasionally marry.’ 

The Canon stared hard at him. These might be 
scientific truths indeed, not unworthy of discussion 
at the British Association, but they ought not to be 
unexpectedly flung down like bomb-shells in an inno- 
cent drawing-room of aristocratic Kensington. 

‘ That may be so,’ he answered chillily. ‘ I have 
not read Mr. Galton’s argument on the subject with 
the care and attention which no doubt it merits. But 
gipsies are gipsies, and monomania is monomania — 
with all due respect to scientific authority. So, at 
an early age, as I was about to observe, these bad 
ancestral traits began to come out in Bertie. He 
insisted upon it that he ought to do some good work 
in the world — which was very right and proper, of 


MRS, HESSLEGRAVE ^ AT HOME^ 


19 


course ; I hope we all of us share his opinion on that 
score,’ the Canon continued, checking himself, and 
dropping for a moment into his professional manner. 
‘ But then, his unfortunate limitation of view to what 
I will venture to call the gipsy horizon made him fail 
to see that the proper world in the work of an English 
nobleman is — is ’ 

‘ To behave as sich,’ the irreverent young American 
suggested parenthetically. 

Canon Valentine regarded him with a peering look 
out of his small black eyes. He had a vague suspicion 
that this bold young man was really trying to chaff 
him ; and one should abstain from chaffing a beneficed 
clergyman of the Church of England. But he thought 
it on the whole wisest and most dignified to treat the 
remark as a serious contribution to a serious con- 
versation. 

‘ Quite so,’ he answered with a forced smile. ‘ You 
put it briefly but succinctly. To fulfil, as far as in 
him lies, the natural duties and functions of his — 
ah’m — ^exalted position. Bertie didn’t see that. He 
was always stupidly wishing he was a shoemaker or 
a carpenter. If you make a pair of shoes, he used 
to say, you do an undoubted and indubitable service 
to the community at large ; a man gb6s dryshod for 
a year in your handiwork : if you give a vote in 
Parliament or develop the resources of your own 
estate, the value of your work for the world, he used 
often to tell me, was more open to question.’ 

‘ Pre-cisely,’ the American answered, with a most 
annoying tone of complete acquiescence. 

The Canon stared at him once more. He expected 
such singular views as his unfortunate kinsman’s to 
rouse at once every sensible person’s reprobation. 


20 


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For he had not yet discovered that the world at large 
is beginning to demand of every man, be he high or 
low, that he should justify his presence in a civilized 
nation by doing some useful work, in one capacity or 
another, for the community that feeds and clothes 
and supports him. 

‘ Very odd notions, indeed,’ he murmured half to 
himself, as a rebuke to the young American. ‘ But 
then, his father was mad, and his mother was a gipsy 
girl.’ 

‘ So at last Lord Axminster disappeared ?’ the 
American continued, anxious to learn the end of this 
curious story. 

‘ At last he disappeared,’ the Canon went on, some- 
what dryly. ‘ He disappeared into space in the most 
determined fashion. ’Twas like the bursting of a 
soap bubble. He wasn’t spirited away. He took 
goo(^, care nobody should ever fancy that. He left a 
letter behind, saying he was going forth to do some 
good in the world, and a power of attorney for his 
grandmother to manage the Axminster property. 
His father and mother were dead, and Maria was 
the nearest relative he had left him. But he dis- 
appeared into space, drawing no funds from the estate, 
and living apparently upon whatever he earned as a 
gardener or a shoemaker. And from that day to this 
nothing has since been heard of him.’ 

‘ Wasn’t there a lady in the case, though ?’ Mrs. 
Hesslegrave suggested, just to, show her familiarity 
with the small-talk of society. 

The Canon recollected himself. 

‘ Oh yes ; I forgot to say that,’ he answered. 
' You’re quite right, Mrs. Hesslegrave. It was 
cherchez la femme, of course, as usual. Bertie had 


MRS. HESSLEGRAVE ^ AT HOME* 


21 


been engaged to a girl of whom he was passionately 
fond ; but she threw him overboard ; I must say 
myself, though I never cared for the boy, she threw 
him overboard most cruelly and unjustifiably. In 
point of fact, between ourselves, she had a better 
offer. An offer from a marquis, a wealthy marquis. 
Axminster was poor, for a man in his position, you 
understand ; these things are relative ; and the girl 
threw him overboard. I won’t mention her name, 
because this is all a family matter ; but she’s a 
marchioness now, and universally admired. Though I 
must admit she behaved badly to Bertie.’ 

‘ Shook his faith in women, I expect ?’ the American 
suggested. 

‘ Entirely,’ the Canon answered. * That’s just what 
he wrote in his last letter. It gave him a distaste for 
society, he said. He preferred to live henceforth in a 
wider world, where a man’s personal qualities counted 
for more than his wealth, his family, or his artificial 
position. I suppose he meant America.’ 

‘ If he did,’ Mortimer put in with a meaning smile, 
* I should reckon he knew very little about our 
country.’ 

' * And you say you’ve got a clue?’ Mrs. Hesslegrave 
interposed. ‘ What is it. Canon ?’ 

The Canon wagged his head. 

‘Ah, that’s it,’ he echoed. ‘ That’s just it. What 
is it? Well, Maria has found out — clever woman, 
Maria — that he sailed from London three years ago, 
under the assumed name of Douglas Overton, in a 
ship whose exact title I don’t remember— the Saucy 
something-or-other — for Melbourne or Sydney. And 
now we’re in hopes we may really track him.’ 

‘ But if you don’t care about him, and the family’s 


22 


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well quit of him,’ the American interjected, ‘ why on 
earth do you want to ?’ 

Canon Valentine turned to him with an almost 
shocked expression of countenance. 

‘ Oh, we don’t want to find him,’ he said, in a depre- 
catory voice. ‘We don’t want to find him. Very 
much the contrary. What we want to do is really to 
prove him dead ; and as the Saucy something-or-other, 
from London to Melbourne, went ashore on her way 
out in the Indian Ocean somewhere, we’re very much 
in hopes — that is to say, we fear — or, rather, we think 
it possible, that every soul on board her perished.’ 

‘ Excellent material for a second Tichborne case,’ 
Mrs. Hesslegrave suggested. 

The Canon pursed his lips. 

‘We’ll hope not,’ he answered. ‘For poor Algy’s 
sake, we’ll hope not, Mrs. Hesslegrave. Algy’s his 
cousin. Mad Axminster had one brother, the Honour- 
able Algernon, who was Algy’s father. You see, the 
trouble of it is, by going away like this and leaving no 
address, Bertie made it impossible for us to settle his 
affairs and behave rightly to the family. He’s keeping 
poor Algy out of his own, don’t you see ? That’s just 
where the trouble is.’ 

‘ If he’s dead,’ Kufus Mortimer suggested with 
American common- sense ; ‘ but not if he’s living.’ 

‘But we’ll hope ’ the Canon began; then he 

checked himself suddenly. ‘ We’ll hope,’ he went on 
with a dexterous after-thought, ‘ this clue Maria has 
got will settle the question at last, one way or the 
other.’ 

‘ Oh, here’s Mrs. Burleigh !’ the hostess exclaimed, 
rising once more from her seat with the manner suit- 
able for receiving a distinguished visitor. ‘ So glad 


MRS. HESSLEGRAVE ^ AT HOME’ 


23 


to see you at last. When did you come up from 
that lovely Norchester ? And how’s the dear 
Bishop ?’ 

‘ I knew Axminster at Oxford,’ a very quiet young 
man in the corner, who had been silent till then, 
observed in a low voice to Bufus Mortimer. ‘ I mean 
the present man — the missing earl — the gipsy’s son, 
as Canon Valentine calls him. I can’t say I ever 
thought him the least bit mad, except in the way of 
being conscientious, if that’s to be taken as a sign of 
madness. He hated wine-parties, which was not 
unnatural, considering his grandfather had drunk 
himself to death, and one of his uncles had to be con- 
fined as an habitual inebriate ; and he liked manual 
labour, which was not unnatural either ; for he was a 
splendidly athletic fellow, as fine-built a man as ever 
I saw, and able to do a good day’s work with any 
navvy in Britain. But he was perfectly sane, and a 
martyr to conscience. He felt this girl’s treatment of 
him very much, I believe — you know who it was — 
Lady Sark, the celebrated beauty ; and he also felt that 
people treated him very differently when they knew he 
was Lord Axminster from the way they treated him 
when he went about the coast as a common sailor, in 
a little tub fishing yacht, which he was fond of doing. 
And that made him long to live a life as a man, not as 
an earl, in order that he might see what there really 
was in him.’ 

‘ A very odd taste,’ the young Philadelphian replied. 
‘ Now, I for my part like best to live among people who 
know all about me and my grandfather, the Vice- 
president, who made the family pile ; because, when I 
go outside my own proper circle, I see people only 
value me at my worth as a man — which I suppose 


24 


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must be just about twelve shillings a week, and no 
allowance for beer-money.’ 

At the very same moment, in the opposite corner of 
the room. Canon Valentine was saying under his breath 
to Mrs. Hesslegrave : 

‘Who is that young man — the very flippant young 
fellow with the straw-colom’ed moustache ? I can’t 
say at first sight I’m exactly taken with him.’ 

And Mrs. Hesslegrave made answer with the wisdom 
of the serpent : 

‘ No, not at first sight, perhaps ; I can understand 
that : he’s American, of course, and a leetle bit 
brusque in his manner, to begin with : but when you 
know him, he’s charming. Has lovely rooms in Paris, 
near the Arc de Triomphe ; and a palazzo m Venice 
on the Grand Canal; and gives delightful receptions. 
He’s taken a house in Stanhope Street this year for 
the season. I’ll get him to send you cards ; his after- 
noons are celebrated : and when you go to Paris, he’ll 
make everything smooth for you. He can do so much ! 
He has influence at the Embassy.’ 

American ? Yes. But what a match he would 
make, after all, for dear Kathleen ! 


CHAPTEE III. 

MILLIONAIRE AND SAILOR. 

While these things were being said of him in the side 
street in Kensington, Albert Ogilvie Eedburn, seventh 
Earl of Axminster, alias Arnold Willoughby, alias 
Douglas Overton, was walking quietly by himself down 


MILLIONAIRE AND SAILOR 


25 


Piccadilly, and not a soul of all he met was taking the 
slightest notice of him. 

It was many years since he had last been in town, 
and, accustomed as he was to his changed position, 
the contrast could not fail to strike him forcibly. 
Ladies he had once known dashed past him in smart 
victorias without a nod or a smile ; men he had often 
played with at the Flamingo Club stared him blankly 
in the face and strolled by, unrecognising ; the cross- 
ing-sweeper at the corner, who used to turn up to him 
a cringing face, with a ‘ Gi’ me a penny, my lord,’ 
now scarcely seemed to notice his presence on the 
pavement. ‘ If you really want to know how insigni- 
ficant you are,’ Arnold thought to himself for the 
fiftieth time, ‘ viewed as a mere human being, all 
you’ve got to do is just to doff your frock-coat, pull 
the flower from your button-hole, forget you’re a lord, 
and come down to the ordinary level of work-a-day 
humanity. It’s a hard life before the mast, on a 
Dundee sealer ; and it’s almost harder in its way, this 
trying to earn enough to live upon with one’s pencil ; 
but it’s worth going through, after all, if only for the 
sake of feeling one’s self face to face with the realities 
of existence. I never should have found out, now, 
how poor a creature I really was — or how strong a one 
either — if I hadn’t put my worth quite fairly to the 
test in this practical manner. It makes a man realise 
his market value. — As it is, I know I’m a tolerable 
A.B., and a very mediocre hand at a paying sea- 
scape.’ 

It was not without difficulty, indeed, that Arnold 
Willoughby (to call him by the only name that now 
generally belonged to him) had managed thus to 
escape his own personality. Many young men of 


26 


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twenty-seven, it is true, might readily shuffle off their 
friends and acquaintances, and might disappear in the 
common ruck, no man suspecting them ; though even 
for a commoner, that’s a far more difficult task than 
you might imagine, when you come to try it. But 
for a peer of the realm to vanish into space like a 
burnt-out fire-balloon is a far more serious and 
arduous undertaking. He knows so many men, and 
so many men know him. So, when Albert Ogilvie 
Eedburn, Earl of Axminster, made up his mind to 
fade away into thin air, giving place at last to Arnold 
Willoughby, he was forced to do it with no small 
deliberation. 

It would not be enough for him to change no more 
than his name and costume. In London, New York, 
Calcutta, Eio, Yokohama, there were people who might 
any day turn up and recognise him. His disguise, to 
succeed, must be better than superficial. But he was 
equal to the occasion. He had no need for hurry ; 
it was not as though the police were on his track in 
hot haste; time after time, his disguise might be 
detected, but he could learn by his errors how to make 
it safer for the future. His one desire was to get rid 
for ever of that incubus of a historical name and a 
great position in the county which made it impossible 
for him to know life as it was, without the cloaks and 
pretences of flunkeys and sycophants. He wished to 
find out his own market value. 

His first attempt, therefore, was to ship on board an 
outward-bound vessel as a common sailor. From 
childhood upward he had been accustomed to yachts, 
and had always been fond of managing the rigging. 
So he found little difficulty in getting a place on board 
during a sailors’ strike, and making a voyage as far as 


MILLIONAIRE AND SAILOR 


27 


Cape Town. At the Cape, he had transferred himself 
by arrangement on purpose to a homeward-bound 
ship ; partly in order to make it more difficult for his 
cousins to trace him, but partly, too, in order to return 
a little sooner to England. He thus accidentally es- 
caped the fate to which Canon Valentine so devoutly 
desired to consign him in the Indian Ocean. Arriving 
home in his common sailor clothes, at Liverpool he 
determined to carry out a notable experiment. He 
had read in a newspaper which he found on board a 
most curious account of one Silas Quackenboss, an 
American face doctor, who undertook to make the 
plainest faces beautiful, not by mere skin-deep devices^ 
but by surgical treatment of the muscles and cartilages 
of the human countenance-. The runaway earl made 
up his mind to put himself through a regular course 
of physical treatment at the hands of this dis- 
tinguished American Professor of the art of disguises. 
The result exceeded his utmost expectations. His 
very features came out of the process so altered that, 
as the Professor proudly affirmed, ‘ India-rubber 
wasn’t in it,’ and ‘His own mother wouldn’t have 
known him.’ It was no mere passing change that 
had thus been effected ; he was externally a new 
person : the man’s whole expression and air were 
something quite different. The missing earl had 
arrived at Liverpool as Douglas Overton ; he left it 
three weeks later as Arnold Willoughby, with an 
almost perfect confidence that not a soul on earth 
would ever again be able to recognise him. 

Of course, he had not confided the secret of his 
personality to the American quack, who probably be- 
lieved he was assisting some criminal to escape from 
j ustice, and who pocketed his fee in that simple belief 


'28 


AT MARKET VALUE 


without a qualm of conscience. So, when he sailed 
from Liverpool again in his new character as Arnold 
Willoughby, it was in the confident hope that he had 
shuffled off for ever his earldom, with its accompany- 
ing limitations of view, and stood forth before the 
world a new and free man, face to face at last with 
the realities and difficulties of normal self-supporting 
human existence. ‘ Now I live like a man,’ Nero said 
to himself, when he had covered half the site of burnt 
Eome with his Golden House. ‘ Now I live like a 
man,’ the self-deposed_earl exclaimed in the exact 
opposite spirit, as he munched the dry biscuit and 
coarse salt pork of the common sailor on the Dudley 
Castle, 

Three years at sea, however, began to tell in time 
even upon Arnold Willoughby’s splendid physique; 
he had to acknowledge at last that early training to 
hardships, too, counts for something. His lungs, it 
turned out, were beginning to be affected. He con- 
sulted a doctor ; and the doctor advised him to quit 
the sea, and take up, if possible, with some more 
sedentary indoor occupation. Above all, he warned 
him against spending the winters in northern seas, 
and recommended him, if a land-lubber’s life was out 
of the question, to ship as much as practicable in the 
colder months for tropical voyages. Arnold smiled 
to himself at the very different spirit in which the 
medical man approached the sailor’s case from the 
way in which he would have approached the case of 
Lord Axminster ; but he was accustomed by this time 
to perfect self-repression on all these matters. He 
merely answered, touching an imaginary hat by pure 
force of acquired habit as he spoke, that he thought 
he knew a way in which he could earn a decent liveli- 


MILLIONAIRE AND SAILOR 


29 


hood on shore if he chose ; and that he would avoid 
in future winter voyages in high latitudes. But as 
the bronzed and weather-beaten sailor laid down his 
guinea manfully and walked out of the room, the 
doctor said to himself with a little start of surprise, 

‘ That man speaks and behaves with the manners of 
a gentleman.’ 

When Arnold Willoughby, as he had long learned to 
call himself, even in his own mind (for it was the 
earnest desire of his life now to fling away for ever the 
least taint or relic of his original position) began to 
look about him for the means of earning that honest 
livelihood of which he had spoken so confidently to the 
doctor, he found in a very short time it was a more 
difficult task than he had at first contemplated. He 
did not desire, indeed, to give up the sea altogether. 
The man who carries useful commodities from country 
to country fulfils as undeniable a service to the State 
as the man who makes a pair of good shoes, or builds 
a warm house, or weaves a yard of broadcloth. And 
of such visible and tangible service to his fellow men, 
Arnold Willoughby was profoundly enamoured. He 
couldn’t bear to give up his chosen profession in spite 
of, or perhaps even because of, its undeniable hardships. 
Still, he didn’t desire to commit what would be prac- 
tical suicide by remaining at sea through the northern 
winter. It occurred to him, therefore, that he might 
divide his time between winter and summer in different 
pursuits. He had always had a great inherited taste 
for art, and had studied, ‘ when he was a gentleman,’ 
as he used to phrase it to himself, in a Paris studio. 
There he had acquired a fair though by no means 
exhaustive knowledge of the technique of painting, 
and he determined to try, for one winter at least. 


30 


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whether he could supplement the sea by his pictorial 
talent. 

But it is one thing to paint or sing or write for your 
own amusement as an amateur, and quite another 
thing to take up any of these artistic pursuits as a 
means of livelihood. Arnold soon found he would have 
enough to do to get through the winter at Venice on 
his own small savings. When he left Membury Castlej 
near Axminster, three years before, he left it and all it 
meant to him behind him for ever. He had taken a 
solitary half-crown in his waistcoat pocket, that being 
the traditional amount with which the British sailor 
is supposed to leave home ; and he had never again 
drawn upon the estate for a penny. He didn’t want 
to play at facing the realities of life, but really to face 
them. If he could fall back from time to time upon 
the Axminster property to tide him over a bad place, 
he would have felt himself an impostor — an impostor 
to himself, untrue to his own inmost beliefs and con- 
victions. Whether he was right or wrong, at any rate 
he felt so. He wanted to know what he was really 
worth. He must stand or fall by his own efforts now, 
like the enormous mass of his fellow-countrymen. 

So all that winter in Venice, the resolute young 
man, now inured to penury, lived, as Eufus Mortimer 
put it, down a side canal off Italian fritura at three 
meals a penny ; lived, and thrived on it, and used up 
his savings : and appeared at last in London that 
spring with the picture he had painted, anxious to pit 
himself, in this as in other things, on equal terms 
against his fellow-craftsmen. 

As he walked down Piccadilly, gazing somewhat 
aimlessly into the windows of the picture shops, and 
wondering whether anybody would ever buy his 


MILLIONAIRE AND SAILOR 


31 


‘ Chioggia Fisher-boats,’ he suddenly felt a hand 
clapped on his shoulder, and turned round, half terri- 
fied, to observe who stopped him. Had some member 
of his old club, in front of which he was just passing, 
seen through the double disguise of burnt skin and 
altered features ? But no. He recognised at a glance 
it was only Eufus Mortimer, tired of the inanities 
of afternoon tea at Mrs. Hesslegrave’s rooms, and 
escaping from the Canon on the Tithes Commutation 
Bill. 

‘ For what port are you bound ?’ the young Ameri- 
can asked, running his arm spontaneously through 
his casual acquaintance’s ; and Arnold liked him for 
the action, it was so frank and friendly. 

‘ No port in particular,’ Willoughby answered with 
his cheery smile. ‘ I’m driven out of my course — 
storm-bound, in point of fact, and scudding under bare 
poles in search of a harbour.’ 

The American seized at once upon the meaning that 
underlay this quaint nautical phraseology. ‘ I sus- 
pected as much,’ he replied, with genuine good-nature, 
looking hard at his man. ‘ It was a disappointment 
to you, I’m afraid, not getting your picture taken.’ 

The sailor half- coloured. He was prepared for 
almost anything on earth except sympathy. ‘ Oh, 
not much,’ he answered with his breezy carelessness 
— the brisk nonchalance of the born aristocrat was one 
of the few traits of his rank and class he had never 
even attempted to get rid of, consciously or uncon- 
sciously. ‘ I should have liked to have it taken, of 
course; but if it isn’t worth taking, why it’ll do me 
good to be taught my proper place in the scale of 
humanity and the scale of painters. One feels at 
least one has been judged with the ruck, and that’s 


32 


AT MARKET VALUE 


always a comfort. One’s been beaten outright, on a 
fair held and no favour.’ 

‘It’s a queer sort of consolation,’ the American 
answered, smiling. ‘For my own part, I’m in the 
same box, and I confess I don’t like it. Though, 
with me, of course, it doesn’t matter financially ; 
it’s only my amour x>Topre, not my purse, that’s hurt 
by it.’ 

Arnold liked this frank recognition of the gulf 
between their positions. ‘Well, that does make a differ- 
ence,’ he said ; ‘ there’s no denying it. I counted 
upon selling this picture to go on painting next winter. 
As it is, I’m afraid I shall have to turn to some other 
occupation. I can’t earn enough at sea in one 
summer to keep me alive and find me in painting 
materials during the winter after it.’ 

Eufus Mortimer gave a sudden little start of sur- 
prise. 

‘ Why, I never thought of that !’ he cried. ‘ One- 
half the world doesn’t know how the other half lives 
— ^^in spite of the constant efforts of the society 
journalists to enlighten it on the subject. I suppose 
to you, now, canvas and paint, and so forth, cosU 
something considerable. And yet one never before sol 
much as thought of them as an element in one’^ 
budget.’ 

‘ They’re a very serious item,’ Arnold answered, withii 
that curious suppressed smile that was almost habitual ^ 
to him. AT 

‘ Then, what do you mean to do ?’ the American _ 
asked, turning round upon him. £ 

‘ I hardly know yet myself,’ Arnold answered, still^ 
carelessly. ‘ It doesn’t much matter. Nothing matters,^ 
in point of fact ; and if it does, never mind — I mean 


MILLIONAIRE AND SAILOR 


33 


to say, personally. One lone ant in the hive is hardly 
worth making a fuss about.’ 

‘Where are you going to dine?’ the American put in 
with a sudden impulse. 

Thus unexpectedly driven to close quarters, Arnold 
replied with equal truth and candour : 

‘ I’m not going to dine anywhere. To say the plain 
fact, I didn’t think of dining.’ 

‘ Why not ?’ Mortimer persisted. 

‘Because,’ the other answered, with a very amused 
look, ‘I don’t happen to possess the wherewithal to 
dine upon.’ 

‘Have a chop with me at the Burlington,’ the 
American interposed with genuine friendliness, ‘and 
let’s talk this over afterwards.’ 

‘If I’d meant to accept an invitation to dinner,’ 
the sailor answered proudly, with just a tinge of the 
earl showing dimly through, ‘ I would certainly not 
have mentioned to you that I happened to be minus 
one.’ 

Mortimer looked at him with a puzzled air. 

‘ Well, you are a queer fellow !’ he said. ‘ One can 
never understand you. Do you really mean to say 
you’re not going to dine at all this evening ?’ 

‘ Sailors learn to go short in the matter of food and 
sleep,’ Arnold replied, with a faint shrug. ‘It becomes 
a second nature to one. I’m certain you’re thinking a 
great deal more of it than I am myself this moment. 
Let me be perfectly open with you. I’ve reached my 
last penny, except the few shillings I have in my 
pocket to pay my landlady down at Wapping. Very 
well, then, it would be dishonest of me to dine and 
leave her unpaid. So I must go without anything to 

3 


AT MARKET VALUE 


34 

eat to-night, and look about me to-morrow for a ship 
to sail in.’ 

‘ And next winter ?’ Mortimer asked. 

‘ Well, next winter, if possible, I shall try to paint 
again. Should that fail, I must turn my hand to some 
other means of livelihood.’ 

‘What a philosopher you are!’ the American ex- 
claimed, astonished. ‘ And what a lesson to fellows 
like us, who were born and brought up in the lap of 
luxury, and complain to the committee if the chef at 
the club serves up our cutlets without sauce piqiiante! 
But there ! I suppose you other chaps get used 
to it.’ 

Albert Ogilvie Eedburn, seventh Earl of Axminster, 
smiled once more that quiet little self-restrained smile 
of his ; but Ai-nold Willoughby it was who replied with 
good humour : 

‘ I suppose we do. At any rate, I shall try to ship 
southward to-morrow.’ 

‘ Shall I tell you the truth ?’ the young American 
asked suddenly. 

‘ It’s the one desire of my life to hear it,’ Arnold 
answered with sincerity. 

‘ Well, I’ll tell you what it is ; I like you very much, 
and I admire you immensely. I think you’re solid. 
But I watched those Chioggia boats of yours when 
you were painting them at Venice. You’re a precious 
clever fellow, and you have imagination, and taste, 
and all that sort of thing ; but your technique’s defi- 
cient. And technique’s everything nowadays. You 
don’t know enough about painting, that’s the truth, 
to paint for the market. What you want is to go for 
a year or two to Paris, and study, study, study as 
hard as you can work at it. Art’s an exacting 


MILLIONAIRE AND SAILOR 


35 


mistress. She claims the whole of you. It’s no good 
thinking nowadays you can navigate half the year and 
paint the other half. The world has revolved out of 
that by this time. You should give up the sea and 
take to art quite seriously.’ 

‘ Thank you for your kindness and frankness,’ 
Arnold replied with genuine feeling, for he saw the 
American was doing that very rare thing — really 
thinking about another person’s interests. ^ It’s good 
of you to trouble yourself about my professional 
prospects.’ 

‘ But don’t you agree with me ?’ 

‘ Oh, perfectly. I see I still sadly want training.’ 

There was a moment’s pause. Then the American 
spoke again. 

*What are you going to do,’ he asked, ‘about 
your Chioggia Fisher-boats, if you mean to sail to- 
morrow ?’ 

‘ I had thought of offering them on commission to 
some dealer ; and if nobody rose to the fly, taking the 
canvas back again to Venice next winter, and painting 
it over with another picture.’ 

Eufus Mortimer paused a moment. This was a 
delicate matter. Then he said, in a rather constrained, 
half-hesitating way : 

‘ Suppose you were to leave it with me, and see 
whether I could manage or not to dispose of it ?’ 

A round red spot burned bright in Arnold 
Willoughby’s cheek. He flushed like a girl with 
sudden emotion. All the rent-roll of the Axminster 
estates was waiting for him in Lincoln’s Inn, if he 
had cared to take it ; but, by his own deliberate design, 
he had cut himself off from it ; and, sink or swim, he 
would not now, after putting his hand to the plough, 


36 


AT MARKET VALUE 


turn back again. He would starve sooner. But the 
generous offer thus delicately cloaked half unmanned 
his resolution. 

‘ My dear fellow,’ he exclaimed, turning round to 
the American, ‘ how much too good you are ! Not for 
worlds would I leave it with you. I know what you 
mean, and I am no less grateful to you than if I 
accepted your offer. It isn’t often one meets with such 
genuine kindness. But for character’s sake, I prefer 
to worry through my own way, unaided. That’s a 
prmciple in life with me. But thank you all the same ; 
thank you, thank you, thank you !’ 

He stood for a moment irresolute. Tears trembled 
in his eyes. He could put up with anything on earth 
but kindness. Then he wrung his friend’s hand hard, 
and with a sudden impulse darted down a side street 
in the direction of St. James’s. 

The American gazed after him with no little 
interest. 

‘ That’s a brave fellow,’ he said to himself, as Arnold 
disappeared round a corner in the distance. ^ But he 
won’t go down just yet. He has far too much pluck 
to let himself sink easily. I expect I shall find him 
next autumn at Venice.’ 


CHAPTEB IV. 

FRATERNAL AMENITIES. 

The season was waning towards its latter end ; Mrs. 
Hesslegrave and Kathleen were on the eve of flight 
for their regular round of autumn visits in the ■ 
country, before returning to their winter quarters at ‘ 


FRATERNAL AMENITIES 


37 


Venice. These autumn visits were half friendly, 
half professional. It was one of the griefs of Mrs. 
Hesslegrave’s life, indeed, that Kathleen’s vocation 
as an artist compelled her to do and to suffer many 
things which in her mother’s eyes were undignified, 
and almost unladylike. Foremost among them was 
the necessity, when visiting in the country, for carry- 
ing her portfolio of sketches along with her; for 
Kathleen’s success was merely a private and local 
one; she depended largely for selling her pictures 
upon the friendly appreciation of her own acquaint- 
ances. It is true, being a timid and retiring girl, 
she never thrust her work incontinently upon her 
hosts ; on the contrary, she was nervously shy about 
anything that looked like self-advertisement or push- 
ing. Still, the fact remained that unless she went a 
round of country visits in the autumn she would 
never have sold most of her pictures at all ; and this 
fact, which gave Kathleen herself no small shrink- 
ings of natural delicacy, covered Mrs. Hesslegrave 
in a very different way with shame and humilia- 
tion. 

For to Mrs. Hesslegrave it was a painful and dis- 
graceful thing that people should know her daughter 
had to work for her living at all ; in her young days, 
she was wont to say severely, young ladies used to 
paint for their own amusement, not for filthy lucre : 
and whenever she said it, with a disapproving toss 
of the dainty coffee - coloured Honiton head-dress, 
Kathleen had somehow an unpleasant feeling in the 
background of her heart that it was really very wrong 
of her to be so badly off, and that if only she had in- 
herited the feelings and manners of a perfect lady, 
she would have managed to be born with five thou- 


38 


AT MARKET VALUE 


sand a year, and nothing to do for it. Though, to 
be sure, if she hadn’t so managed, after all, it might 
with some show of reason be urged in extenuation 
that the fault lay rather at the door of that impeccable 
Mrs. Hesslegrave herself, and the late lamented 
General of Artillery, her husband, who had been 
jointly responsible for bringing Kathleen into the 
world with no better endowment than just a pair of 
pretty white hands, and an artistic faculty for deftly 
employing them in the production of beautiful and 
pleasing images. 

On this particular evening, however, Kathleen was 
tired with packing ; her head ached slightly ; and she 
was anxious to be kept as undisturbed as possible. 
Therefore, of course, her brother Eeginald had chosen 
it as the aptest moment to drop in towards the dinner- 
hour for a farew^ell visit to his mother and sister. 
Eeginald was twenty, with a faint black line on his 
upper lip — which he called a moustache — and he 
was a child entirely after Mrs. Hesslegrave’s own 
heart; in his mother’s eyes, indeed, a consummate 
gentleman. To be sure, the poor boy had the mis- 
fortune to be engaged in an office in the City — a most 
painful position : Mrs. Hesslegrave’s narrow means 
had never 'allowed her to send him to Sandhurst or 
Woolwich and get him a commission in the army — 
but that the fond mother regarded as poor Eeggie’s 
ill-luck ; and Eeggie himself endeavoured to make up 
for it by copying to the best of his ability the tone 
and manner of military circles, as far as was com- 
patible with the strict routine of a stockbroker’s 
office. If collars and cuffs and the last thing out in 
octagon ties constitute the real criterion of the gentle 
life (as is the naive belief of so large a fraction of the 


FRATERNAL AMENITIES 


39 


City), then was Eeginald Hesslegrave indeed a gentle- 
man. What though he subsisted in great part on 
poor Kathleen’s earnings, and pocketed her hard- 
won cash to supplement his own narrow salary, with 
scarcely so much as a ‘ thank you ’ — one doesn’t like 
to seem beholden to a woman in these matters, you 
know — yet was the cut of his coats a marvel to Adam’s 
Court, and the pattern of his sleeve-links a thing to 
be observed by the stipendiary youth of Threadneedle 
Street and Lothbury. 

Keginald flung himself down in the big easy-chair 
by the bow window with the air of a man who drops 
in for a moment to counsel, advise, assist, and over- 
look his womenkind — in short, with all the dignity 
of the head of the family. He was annoyed that ‘ his 
people ’ were leaving town ; leave they must, sooner 
or later, of course ; if they didn’t, how could Kathleen 
ever dispose of those precious daubs of hers? — foi’ 
though Eeginald pocketed poor Kathleen’s sovereigns 
with the utmost calm of a great spirit, he always 
affected profoundly to despise the dubious art that 
produced them. Still, the actual moment of his 
people’s going was always a disagreeable one to 
Eeginald Hesslegrave. As long as mother and Kitty 
stopped on in town, he had somewhere respectable 
to spend his evenings, if he wished to; somewhere 
presentable to which he could bring other fellows at 
no expense to himself ; and that, don’t you know, is 
always a consideration ! As soon as they were gone, 
there was nothing for it but the club ; and at the 
club, that sordid place, they make a man pay himself 
for whatever he consumes, and whatever he offers in 
solid or liquid hospitality to other fellows. So no 
matter how late mother and Kitty stayed in town, it 


40 


AT MARKET VALUE 


made Eeggie cross, all the same, when the day came 
for their departure. 

‘ How badly you do up your back-hair, Kitty !’ 
Eeggie observed with a sweet smile of provocation, 
after a few other critical remarks upon his sister’s 
appearance. ‘ You put no style into it. You ought 
just to look at Mrs. Algy Eedburn’s hair ! There’s 
art if you like. She does it in a bun. She. knows 
how to dress it. It’s a model for a duchess !’ 

‘ Mrs. Algy Eedburn keeps a maid, no doubt,’ his 
sister answered, leaning back in her chair a little 
wearily, for she was worn out with packing. ‘ So 
the credit of her bun belongs, of course, to the maid 
who dresses it.’ 

‘ She keeps a maid,’ Eeggie went on, with his hands 
on his haunches in an argumentative attitude. ‘ Why, 
certainly, she keeps a maid. What else would you 
expect? Every lady keeps a maid. It’s a simple 
necessity. And you ought to keep a maid, too. No 
woman can be dressed as a lady should dress, if 
she doesn’t keep a maid. The thing’s impossible.’ 
And he snapped his mouth to like a patent rat- 
trap. 

‘ Then I must be content to dress otherwise than as 
a lady should,’ Kathleen responded quietly; ‘for I 
can’t afford a maid — and to tell you the truth, 
Eeggie, I really don’t know that I should care to have 
one !’ 

‘ Can’t afford !’ Eeggie repeated with a derisive 
accent of profound scorn. ‘ That’s what you always 
say. I hate to hear you say it. The phrase is unlady- 
like. If you can’t afford anything, you ought to be 
able to afford it. How do I afford things ? I dress 
like a gentleman. You never see me ill-tailored or 


FRATERNAL AMENITIES 


41 


ill-groomed, or doing without anything a gentleman 
ought to have. How do I afford it ?’ 

Kathleen had it on the tip of her tongue to give 
back the plain and true retort, ‘ Why, by making 
your sister earn the money to keep you but native 
kindliness and womanly feeling restrained her from 
saying so. So she only replied : 

‘ I’m sure I don’t know, my dear ; I often wonder : 
for I can’t afford it, and I earn more than you do.’ 

Reggie winced a little at that. It was mean of 
Kitty so to twit him with his poverty. She was 
always flinging his want of ready-money in his face — 
as though want of money (when you spend every 
penny that fate allows you — and a little more too) 
were a disgrace to any gentleman ! But he continued 
none the less in the same lordly strain : 

‘ You dress badly ; that’s the fact of it. No woman 
should spend less than three hundred a year on her 
own wardrobe ! It can’t be done for one shilling 
under that. She ought to spend it.’ 

‘ Not if she hasn’t got it,’ Kathleen answered 
stoutly. 

‘ Whether she’s got it or not,’ Reggie responded at 
once, with profound contempt for such unladylike 
morality. ‘ Look at Mrs. Algy Redburn ! How does 
she do, I’d like to know ? Everybody’s well aware 
Algy hasn’t got a brass farthing to bless himself with; 
yet who do you see dressed in the Park like his wife ? 
Such bonnets ! Such coats ! Such a ?bun ! There’s 
a model for you !’ 

‘ But Mrs. Algy Redburn will some day be Lady 
Axminster,’ Kathleen answered with a sigh, not per- 
ceiving herself that that vague contingency had really 
nothing at all to do with the rights and wrongs of the 


42 


AT MARKET VALUE 


question. ‘ And I will not.’ (Which was also to 
some extent an unwarrantable assumption.) 

Eeggie flashed his cuffs, and regarded them with 
just pride. 

‘ That’s no matter,’ he answered curtly. ‘ Every 
lady is a lady, and should dress like a lady, no matter 
what’s her income. And she can’t do that under 
three hundred a year. You take my word for it.’ 

Kathleen was too tired to keep up the dispute. So 
she answered nothing. 

But Eeggie had come round to his sister’s that 
night in the familiar masculine teasing humour. He 
wasn’t going to be balked of his sport so easily. ’Twas 
as good as ratting, at half the cost, and almost equal 
to badger-drawing. So he went on after a minute : 

‘A man doesn’t need so much. His wants are 
simpler. I think I can dress like a gentleman myself 
— on two hundred and fifty.’ 

* As your salary’s eighty,’ Kathleen put in resignedly, 
with one hand on her aching head, ‘ I don’t quite 
know myself where the remainder’s to come from.’ 

Eeggie parried the question. 

‘ Oh, I’m careful,’ he went on — ‘ very careful, you 
know, Kitty. I make it a rule never to ivaste my 
money. I buy judiciously. Look at linen, for example. 
Linen’s a very important item. I require a fresh 
shirt, of course, every morning. Even you will ad- 
mit ’ (he spoke with acerbity, as though Kathleen were 
a sort of acknowledged social Pariah) — ‘ even you will 
admit that a supply of clean linen is a necessary ad- 
junct to a gentleman’s appearance. Well, how do you 
think, now, I manage about my cuffs ? I’ll tell you 
what I do about them. There are fellows at our place, 
if you’ll believe it, who wear movable cuffs — cuffs, 


FRATERNAL AMENITIES 


43 


don’t you know, that come off and on the same as a 
collar does : nasty separate shirt cuffs. I don’t call 
such things gentlemanly. The fellows that wear them 
take them off when they come to the office, and slip 
them on again over their hands when they have to 
run across with a client to the House— that’s what we 
call the Stock Exchange — or when they go out for 
luncheon. Well, I don’t like such ways myself. I 
hate and detest all shams and subterfuges. I wouldn’t 
wear a cuff unless it was part and parcel of my shirt. 
So I’ve invented a dodge to keep them clean from 
morning till evening. As soon as I go into the office, 
I just cut a piece of white foolscap the exact size of 
my cuffs ; I double it back, so, over the edge of the 
sleeve ; I pass it under again, this way. Then, while 
I stop in the office, I keep the cover on ; and it looks 
pretty much the same as the linen. That prevents 
blacks and smuts from settling on the cuff, and keeps 
the wear and tear of writing and so forth from hurt- 
ing the material. But when I go out, I just slip the 
paper off, so ! — and there I am, you see, with spotless 
linen, like a gentleman !’ And he demonstrated 
triumphantly. 

‘ A most ingenious dodge !’ Kathleen answered with 
languid interest. 

‘ Yes, it’s careful of me,’ Reggie went on ; ‘ I’m 
naturally careful. And by such strict bits of economy 
I expect in the end — to keep down my expenditure on 
dress to two hundred and fifty.’ 

Kathleen smiled very faintly. 
kr ‘ You don’t think a fellow can do it on less, do you ?’ 
Reggie continued once more in an argumentative 
spirit. 

'Yes, I do,’ Kathleen replied. ‘I certainly think 


44 


AT MARKET VALUE 


SO. And if he’s a man, and can’t afford to spend so 
much, I think he should be ashamed of himself for 
talking such nonsense.'’ 

‘Well, but look here, you know,’ Eeggie began, 
‘ w^hat’s a man to do ? You just think of it this way ! 
First, he must have a dress suit once a year, of course ; 
you’ll admit that’s a necessity. Gloves and white 
ties— those he needs for evening. Then a frock coat 
and waistcoat, with trousers to match ; and a black 
cutaway lot for afternoon tea ; and two suits of dittos 
for country wear ; and a tweed with knickerbockers 
for shooting and so forth ; and a tennis coat, and 
boating flannels, and ’ 

‘ Oh, don’t, Eeggie !’ his sister cried, shrinking 
away and clapping her hands to her aching head. 
‘ You comb my brain ! I’m too tired to argue with 
you!’ 

‘ That’s just it,’ Eeggie continued, delighted. ‘You 
live in wretched lodgings, with no proper food — your 
cook’s atrocious — and you work till you drop at your 
beastly painting ; and you tire yourself out with pack- 
ing your own boxes, instead of keeping a maid, who’d 
do it all like a shot for you ; and what’s the conse- 
quence ? Why, you’re unfit for society ! When a 
fellow comes round to pay you a visit after a hard day’s 
work, and expects a little relaxation and stimulating 
talk with the ladies of his family, he finds you worn 
out — a mere boiled rag ; while as to music, or conver- 
sation, or some agreeable chat — oh, dear me, no ! not 
the ghost of an idea of it !’ 

Kathleen’s patience was exhausted. 

‘ My dear boy,’ she said half angrily, ‘ I have to 
work to keep myself alive, and you, too, into the 
bargain. And if you expect me to supply you with 


FRATERNAL AMENITIES 


45 


two hundred a year to spend upon your wardrobe, 
why, you must at least consent to give up the pleasure 
of music in the evenings.’ 

What Keginald might have answered to this un- 
expected attack remains an unknown fact in the 
history of the universe ; for just at that minute the 
neat-capped little waiting-maid of the Kensington 
lodgings opened the door with a flourish and an- 
nounced, ‘ Mr. Mortimer !’ 

The young American entered with undisguised 
alacrity, and gazed delighted around the room. 

‘ Mrs. Hesslegrave is out, I hear,’ he began with 
meaning, as he took Kathleen’s hand. Then he 
started a little in surprise as Eeginald rose from the 
chair where he had been sitting, unseen. ‘ But your 
brother’s here,’ he added in a disappointed after- 
thought, whose distmct tone of regret must needs 
have struck anybody less self-centred and self- 
satisfied than the stockbroker’s assistant. 

‘Yes, I dropped round to say good-bye to my 
people to-night,’ Beggie answered with a drawl, 
caressing that budding black line on his upper lip 
with all a hobbledehoy’s affection. ‘ They’re off on 
a round of visits in the country just now. Hard 
lines on me ! I shall be left all alone by myself in 
London !’ 

Kufus Mortimer surveyed him from head to foot 
with a comprehensive glance, which seemed to say, 
about as clear as looks could say it, that whatever he 
did he wouldn’t be much missed anywhere — especially 
just at that moment; but being a polite young man, 
after his own lights, he failed to j)ut his idea into 
words for the present. He merely sat down on the 
divan, not far from Kathleen, and began to talk with 


46 


AT MARKET VALUE 


her about art (a subject which invariably bored Mr. 
Reginald), taking not the slightest notice in any way 
all the while of her brother’s presence. Before he 
knew it almost, they were away in Florence : deep in 
their Raphaels and Andrea del Sartos, and so forth. 
Reggie stood it for ten minutes or so; then he rose 
and yawned. Fra Filippo Lippi had almost choked him 
off : but Pacchiarotto finished him. He wasn’t going to 
stop and hear any more of this rot. He longed for 
something sensible. He’d go out and see what the even- 
ing papers said of the favourite for the Two Thousand. 

But Kathleen called him back anxiously. ‘ Where 
are you going to, Reggie ?’ she asked, with unexpected 
affection. It wasn’t often she seemed so eager for the 
pleasure of his society. 

‘ Oh, just strolling out for a bit,’ her brother 
answered evasively, ‘ till the Mums comes back. I 
thought you and Mortimer seemed to be hitting it off 
on high art very well together.’ 

‘ Don’t go just yet,’ his sister put in, with a quick 
look at him. ‘ I’m sure mother ’d be vexed if you 
went away without seeing her.’ 

‘ I meant to come back soon,’ Reggie responded with 
a sigh, his right hand still fingering the knob of the 
door. ‘ I expect you won’t miss me.’ 

‘ Oh, don’t let him stay on my account,’ Mortimer 
echoed with polite anxiety, giving Kathleen a pleading 
look half aside in his turn. It was clear from that 
look he wanted a tete-a-tete with her. 

But Kathleen was inexorable. ‘I’d rather you 
stopped, Reggie,’ she said in such a decided voice that 
even Reggie understood, and made up his mind to 
give way to her. ‘ Mother ’ll be here before long, and 
I loant you to wait for her.’ 


FRATERNAL AMENITIES 


47 


Keggie sat down with a bump. 

‘ Oh, as you will,’ he answered, dropping back into 
his easy-chair. ‘ I’m sure I don’t mind. It’s all the 
same to me. Only, I thought you two could run this 
Fra Angelico business just about as well without me, 
don’t you know, as with me. I don’t pretend to 
excite myself over Fra Angelico, any way.’ 

So for the next half-hour poor Kufus Mortimer sat 
on, still discussing art — which is a capital subject, no 
doubt, when you want to talk of it, but which palls a 
little, it must be confessed, if it intervenes inconti- 
nently at the exact moment of time when you’re 
waiting to ask the young woman of your choice whether 
or not she’ll have you. Eufus Mortimer, for his part, 
was rather inclined, as things stood, to put his money 
on the not. For if that delightful English girl had 
really wanted him, surely she would have managed to 
get rid, by hook or by crook, of her superfluous 
brother. Instead of which, she had positively, en- 
couraged him in remaining. Which things being so, 
Eufus Mortimer was more than half disposed to think 
she desired to avoid having to give him an answer. 
For that he was really and truly sorry ; for he had 
always liked her very much ; and now that she showed 
some disposition to refuse him, why, he came exceed- 
ingly near to loving her. Such is the way of man ! 
The fact that Kathleen Hesslegrave seemed to hold 
him at arm’s-length made Eufus Mortimer resolve in 
his own mind at all hazards to marry her. 

After Mrs. Hesslegrave had returned for a few 
minutes, somewhat later, the young man rose to go. 
It was no use waiting now ; Kathleen was fenced in, 
as it were, by a double thorn hedge of mother and 
brother. Yet he paused by the open door, and held 


48 


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Kathleen’s hand for a second in his own as he said 
good-bye. 

‘ Then we shall meet in Venice,’ he said at last, re- 
gretfully. ‘ In Venice ; in October.’ 

Kathleen looked at him with some concern. 

‘But you would do better to be in Paris,’ she said 
low. ‘ It’s so much more important for j^our art, you 
know !’ And she trembled slightly. 

‘No,’ the American answered, brightening up at 
that little spark of seeming interest in his private pur- 
suits. ‘ It shall be Venice, Miss Hesslegrave. I make 
it Venice.’ Then he paused for a second, as if afraid 
of going too far. ‘ There are things,’ he said, gazing 
wistfully at her with his big brown eyes, ‘ much more 
important m one’s life than art ! So Venice it shall 
be ! Let me meet you in Venice !’ 

As soon as he was gone, Keggie turned to her with 
a sniggle. 

‘.That chap’s awfully gone on you, Kitty,’ he said, 
much amused. ‘ He’s awfully gone on you. For my 
part, I never can understand any fellow being gone on 
such a girl as you; but he’s awfully gone on you. 
Why wouldn’t you let me go out ? Didn’t you see 
he was just dying to have ten minutes alone with 
you ?’ 

‘ Yes, I did see,’ Kathleen answered ; ‘ and that was 
exactly why I didn’t want you to go out that moment. 
I didn’t wish to be left alone with him.’ 

Keggie opened his eyes wide. 

‘ He’s a jolly good match,’ he continued. ‘ And a 
decent enough sort of fellow too — though he knows 
nothing of horses. I’m sure I don’t see why you 
should make such bones about accepting him !’ 

‘ I quite agree with Keggie,’ put in Mrs. Hesslegrave, 


A CHANCE ENCOUNTER 


49 


who had entered. ‘He’s an excellent young man. 
I’m surprised at what you say of him.’ 

Kathleen rose from her seat like one who doesn’t 
care to continue a discussion. 

‘ He’s a very good fellow,’ she said, with one hand 
on the door : ‘ and I like him immensely. So much 
that — I didn’t care to be left alone with him this 
evening.’ 

And with that enigmatical remark she slipped away 
from the room and ran quietly upstairs to complete 
her packing. 


CHAPTEK V. 

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER. 

‘October in Venice is always charming,’ Kufus Morti- 
mer remarked, as he leaned back luxuriously on the 
padded seat of his own private gondola, the Cristoforo 
Colombo. ‘ The summer’s too hot here, and the 
winter’s too chilly ; but October and April are perfect 
poems. I’m so glad I made up my mind to come, 
after all. I never saw Venice before to such absolute 
advantage.’ 

Mrs. Hesslegrave gathered her light wrap round her 
ample shoulders, and settled herself down on the best 
back bench with an’ air of unalloyed and complete 
enjoyment. She was thoroughly in her element. 
‘ There’s nothing more delightful than a gondola to 
travel in,’ she said with placid contentment in her full 
round face, looking up at the two sturdy gondoliers in 
gay costumes, who handled the paddles at prow and 
stern with true Venetian mastery of the art and craft 
of the lagoons. She would have said, if she had been 

4 


50 


AT MARKET VALUE 


quite candid, ‘ Nothing more delightful than a 'private 
gondola;’ for ’twas that last touch indeed that made 
up to Mrs. Hesslegrave half the pleasure of the situa- 
tion. It flattered her vanity, her sense of superiority 
to the vulgar herd. She hated to hire a mere ordinary 
hack-boat at the steps by the Molo ; to entrust herself 
to the hands of a possibly extortionate and certainly 
ill-dressed boatman, and to be lost in the common 
ruck of plain tourist humanity. But what her soul 
just loved was to glide like this along the Grand Canal 
in a private craft, with two gentlemen’s servants in 
full Venetian costume — red sash and black jerkin — by 
the iron bow; to know herself the admired of all 
beholders, who really couldn’t tell at a casual glance 
whether she was or was not the proprietor in person 
of the whole turn-out, the eminently respectable family 
equipage. I don’t know why, but we must all admit 
there is certainly a sense of extreme luxury and aristo- 
cratic exclusiveness about a private gondola, as about 
the family state -barge of the seventeenth - century 
nobleman, which is wholly wanting to even the most 
costly of modern carriages and beliveried footmen. Mrs. 
Hesslegrave felt as much — and was happy accordingly ; 
for nothing gave her mind such pure enjoyment as 
the feeling, quite hateful to not a few among us, that 
she was enjoying something which all the world could 
not equally enjoy, and was giving rise to passing 
qualms of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitable- 
ness in the ill-balanced minds of casual spectators. 

So she glided in placid enjoyment down the Grand 
Canal, drinking it all in as she went with receptive 
eyes, and noting, by the mute evidence of blinds and 
shutters, which families were mow back in their stately 
palazzos from their summer holidays, and which were 


A CHANCE ENCOUNTER 


5 


still drinking ‘ the gross mud-honey of town ’ in 
London or Paris, Berlin or Vienna. 

‘ There’s the Contarini-Fasan,’ Kathleen cried in 
delight as they passed in front of one delicious little 
palace with mouldering pointed Venetian arches of the 
fourteenth century. * How lovely it always looks ! 
That exquisite moulding ! That rich work round the 
windows ! And those romantic balconies ! — I wonder, 
Mr. Mortimer, you didn’t try to rent some old place 
like that, instead of the one you’ve got. It’s so much 
more picturesque, you know !’ 

* Do you think so ?’ the young American answered, 
looking quite pleased for a second that she should 
make the suggestion. ‘ Well, you see, I didn’t know 
you’d prefer a medieval one. And the Kenaissance 
are certainly more convenient to live in.’ 

‘Why, my dear child,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave interposed, 
with quite a shocked expression, ‘ what on earth could 
be more lovely than Mr. Mortimer’s palazzo ? It’s 
much the largest and most important-looking house 
(except, of course, the Prefecture and the foreign 
ambassadors’) on the Grand Canal. I don’t see, my- 
self, how in the world you can find fault with it.’ 

‘ Miss Hesslegrave’ s quite right,’ the American 
answered quickly, with grave politeness, darting a 
glance at Kathleen. ‘ Of course, in point of beauty, 
there can be no comparison between a palazzo like 
mine, all plain round windows or Kenaissance doors, 
and such crystallized dreams in lace- like stone as the 
Ca d’Oro or the Palazzo Pisani. One capital of their 
columns is worth my whole courtyard. It’s for those 
alone we come to live in Venice. But then, they’re 
not always in the market, don’t you see ; and besides, 
in many ways they’re less convenient to live in. One 


52 


AT MARKET VALUE 


must think of that sometimes. The picturesque is all 
very well as an object of abstract contemplation in 
life ; but when it comes to daily needs, we somehow 
seem to prefer the sanitary and the comfortable.’ 

‘ Oh, and what an exquisite glimpse up the side- 
canal there!’ Kathleen exclaimed once more, with a 
lingering accent on the words, as they passed just in 
front of an old red tower with bells hung in its arch- 
ways. ‘ That’s the campanile of San Vitale, that 
tower. I always love it : it’s a beautiful bit. These 
quaint out-of-the-way places, that nobody else ever 
paints, I love the best of all in Venice. They’re so 
much more beautiful and picturesque, after all, than 
the common things all the world admires, and one sees 
everywhere — the Eialto, and the Bridge of Sighs, and 
Santa Maria della Salute.’ 

• ‘ The Macdougalls are back, I see,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave 
interposed with a glance at a first-floor. ‘ That’s their 
house, Mr. Mortimer. They’re charming people, and 
immensely wealthy. That big red place there, just 
round by the Layards’.’ 

‘And what lovely old windows it has I’ Kathleen 
exclaimed, glancing up. ‘ Those deep-recessed quatre- 
foils I How exquisite they look, with the canary- 
creeper climbing up the great stone mullions to the 
tracery of the arches ! Don’t you love the blue posts 
they moor their boats to ?’ 

‘ I wonder if they’ve begun their Friday afternoons 
yet,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave went on, following out the 
track of her own reflections. ‘ We must look and see, 
Kathleen, when we go back to our lodgings.’ 

‘ There was a whole heap of cards, mother,’ Kathleen 
replied, watching the curl of the water from the 
paddle’s edge. ‘ I didn’t much look at them ; but I 


A CHANCE ENCOUNTER 


53 


stuck them all in the yellow Cantagalli pot on the 
table by the landing. For my part, I just hate these 
banal gaieties in Venice. They interfere so much with 
one’s time and one’s painting.’ 

‘ Ah, yes, poor Kathleen !’ Mrs. Hesslegrave mur- 
mured pathetically. ‘ It’s so hard on her, Mr. 
Mortimer. I’m sure you pity her. She has to work 
like a slave ! She grudges all the time she gives up 
every week to the natural sports and tastes of her age 
and her position in society. It’s so different with you, 
of course. You have only to paint just when and 
where you like. Yours is art for art’s sake. Poor 
Kathleen feels compelled to stick at it for a liveli- 
hood.’ 

‘ But I like it, mother,’ Kathleen cried, colouring 
up to her very ears. ‘I love my art. I’d much 
rather be out painting on one of these lovely, solitary 
side-canals than cooped up in a drawing-room talking 
silly small-talk to a whole lot of stupid people I don’t 
care a pin about.’ 

Mrs. Hesslegrave sighed, and shook her head 
faintly, with a speaking glance beneath her eyelids 
at Mortimer. (She was under the impression that 
she was ‘ drawing him on ’ by the pathetic channel.) 

‘ It’s so sweet of you to say so, dear,’ she murmured 
half aside. ‘ You want to reassure me. That’s charm- 
ing and sweet of you. And I know you like it. In 
your way you like it. It’s a dispensation, of course. 
Things are always so ordered. What’s that lovely 
text about “ tempering the wind to the shorn lamb ” ? 
I’m sure it applies to you. I invariably think so in 
church when I hear it.’ For Mrs. Hesslegrave was 
not the first to attribute to Holy Scripture that 
sentimental and eminently untrustworthy saying, 


54 


AT MARKET VALUE 


which belongs by right to the author of ‘ Tristram 
Shandy.’ 

Just at that moment, however, as they turned with 
a dexterous twirl under a low bridge up the silent little 
water-way that leads through quaint lanes to the 
church of the Frari, they were startled by a sudden 
voice crying out from close by in clear English tones : 

‘ Hullo, Mortimer ! There you are ! So you’re back 
again in Venice!’ 

The speaker was not in a gondola, whether private 
or otherwise; and his costume was so unaffectedly and 
frankly sailor-like, as of the common mariner, that 
Mrs. Hesslegrave was at first sight inclined to resent 
his speaking in so familiar a tone of voice to the 
occupants of a distinguished and trimly-kept craft like 
the Cristoforo Colombo, But his accent was a gentle- 
man’s ; and Mrs. Hesslegrave reflected, just in time 
to prevent her from too overtly displaying her hostile 
feelings, that nowadays young men of the very best 
families so often dress just like common sailors when 
they’re out on a yachting cruise. No doubt this 
eccentric person in the jersey and cap who called out 
so easily to their host as ‘ Mortimer,’ must be one of 
these ; otherwise, he would surely have known his 
place better than to shout aloud in that unseemly 
hail-fellow-well-met way to the occupants of a hand- 
some private gondola. 

But Eufus Mortimer looked up at him with a quick 
glance of recognition. ‘ Hullo, Willoughby,’ he cried, 
waving his hand to the gondoliers to draw near the 
bank. * So you’re back again, too ! This is better 
than I expected. I was more than half afraid we 
shouldn’t see you at all at the old perch this winter.’ 

And even as Mrs. Hesslegrave looked up and won- 


A CHANCE ENCOUNTER 


55 


dered — oh, miracle of Fate ! — Kathleen rose from her 
seat and leant over the edge of the gondola with one 
hand outstretched in quite kindly recognition towards 
the sailor-looking stranger. 

‘ Why, it’s you, Mr. Willoughby,’ she cried with 
clear welcome in her voice. ‘ I am so glad to see you 
in Venice !’ 

Arnold Willoughby held out his hand in return with 
a slight tremor of pleased surprise at this unwonted 
reception. 

‘ Then you haven’t forgotten me ?’ he exclaimed 
with unaffected pleasure. ‘ I didn’t think. Miss Hessle- 
grave, you’d be likely to remember me.’ 

Kathleen turned towards her mother, whose eyes 
were now fixed upon her in the mutely interrogative 
fashion of a prudent mamma when her daughter 
recognises an uncertified stranger. 

‘ This is the gentleman I told you about, dear,’ she 
said simply, presenting him. ‘ The gentleman who was 
so good to me that Taking-away Day at the Academy 
this spring. Don’t you remember, I mentioned him ?’ 

Mrs. Hesslegrave froze visibly. This was really too 
much. She drew herself up as stiff and straight as 
one can easily manage in a wobbling gondola. ‘ I 
have some dim recollection,’ she said with slow 
accents in her chilliest tone, ‘ that you spoke to me of 
some gentleman you didn’t know who was kind enough 
to help you in carrying back your picture. I— I’m 
de-lighted to meet him.’ But the tone in which Mrs. 
Hesslegrave said that word ‘ de-lighted ’ belied its 
significance. 

‘ Step into the gondola, Willoughby,’ the young 
American suggested with the easy friendliness of his 
countrymen. ‘ Are you going anywhere in particular ? 


56 


AT MARKET VALUE 


— No ? Just lounging about reconnoitring the ground 
for the winter’s campaign ? Then you’d better jump 
in and let’s hear what you’ve been up to.’ 

Arnold Willoughby, nothing loath, descended lightly 
into the gondola. As he entered Mrs. Hesslegrave 
drew her gown just a little on one side instinctively. 
She had a sort of feeling in her soul that this maritime- 
looking young man didn’t move in exactly the same 
exalted sphere as that to which she and hers had 
always been accustomed. He hadn’t at all the air of 
a cavalry officer; and to Mrs. Hesslegrave’s mind 
your cavalry officer was the measure of all things. 
So she shrank from him unobtrusively. But Kathleen 
noticed the shrinking, and being half afraid the nice 
sailor-like painter might have noticed it too, she was 
even more polite to him than she might otherwise 
have been in consequence of her mother’s unspoken 
slight. 

Willoughby took a place in the stern, on the com- 
fortable stuffed seat between Mortimer and Kathleen. 
His manners at least, Mrs. Hesslegrave observed with 
comparative pleasure, -were those of a gentleman ; 
though his tailor’s bill would certainly not have suited 
her son Reginald’s enlightened views on that im- 
portant subject. 

‘Well, tell us all about it,’ Mortimer began at once, 
with the utmost cordiality. ‘ You’re here, we all see. 
How have you managed to come here ? It was only 
yesterday I was telling Miss Hesslegrave at the station 
how you weren’t sure whether things would turn out 
so as to enable you to return ; and she said she so 
much hoped you’d manage to come back again.’ 

‘ We should be painting so near one another this 
year, no doubt,’ Kathleen said with a pleasant smile. 


A CHANCE ENCOUNTER 


57 


‘ we’d be able to see something of one another’s work 
and one another’s society.’ 

Arnold Willoughby’s face flushed with genuine and 
unexpected pleasure. Could it be really the fact that 
this pretty and pleasant-mannered artist girl was 
genuinely glad he had come back to Venice ? And he 
a poor painter with only his art to bless himself with ? 
To Arnold Willoughby, after his rude awakening to 
fuller experience of the ways and habits of men and 
women, such disinterested interest seemed well-nigh 
incredible. He glanced at her timidly, yet with a face 
full of pleasure. 

‘ That was very, very kind of you,’ he answered, 
rather low, for kindness always overcame him. Then 
he turned to the American. ‘ Well, it was like this, 
you see, Mortimer,’ he said ; ‘ I sold my picture.’ 

‘ Not the Chioggia Fisher-boats ?’ Kathleen cried, 
quite interested. 

‘ Yes, the same you saw that day I met you at the 
Academy,’ Arnold answ^ered, with secret delight that 
the pretty girl should have remembered the name and 
subject of his maiden effort. 

‘I thought you’d sell it,’ Kathleen replied, really 
radiant. ‘ I am so glad you did. Mr. Mortimer told 
me your return to Venice and your future in art very 
largely depended upon your chance of selling it.’ 

‘Kathleen, my dear,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave interposed 
in her chilliest voice, ‘ do iake care what you do. 
Don’t you see you’re letting your shawl hang over into 
the water ?’ 

Kathleen lifted it up hurriedly, and went on with 
her conversation, unheeding her mother’s hint, which 
indeed fell flat upon her. 

‘ I knew you’d sell it,’ she continued with girlish 


58 


AT MARKET VALUE 


enthusiasm. ‘ It was so good. I liked it immensely. 
Such rich colour on the sails ; and such delicate 
imagination !’ 

‘But it rather lacked technique,’ the American 
interposed, just a trifle chillily. 

‘ Oh, technique anybody can get nowadays,’ Kathleen 
answered with warmth — ‘ if he goes to the right place 
for it. It’s a matter of paying. What he can’t buy 
or be taught is imagination — fancy — keen sense of 
form — poetical colour-perception.’ 

‘ And how much did they give you for it ?’ the 
American asked, point-blank, with his country’s 
directness. (An Englishman would have said, ‘ I 
hope the terms were satisfactory.’) 

Willoughby parried the question. 

‘ Not much,’ he answered discreetly. ‘ But enough 
for my needs. I felt at least my time had not been 
wasted. It’s enabled me to come back this autumn to 
Venice, which on many grounds I greatly desired to 
do ; and it will even allow me to get a little more 
instruction in that technique of art which you rightly 
say is the weak point of my position. So, of course j 
on the whole, I’m more than satisfied.’ 

‘ And what have you been doing all summer ?’ 
Mortimer continued, with a lazy wave to the gondolier, 
leaning back at his ease on his padded cushions. 

Arnold Willoughby still retained too much of the 
innate self-confidence of the born aristocrat to think it 
necessary for him to conceal anything that seemed to 
himself sufiiciently good for him to do. If he could do 
it, he could also acknowledge it. 

‘ Oh, I just went to sea again,’ he answered frankly. 
‘ I got a place as A.B. on a Norwegian ship that traded 
with Dieppe ; deal planks and so forth ; and the hard 


A CHANCE ENCOUNTER 


59 


work and fresh air I got in the North Sea have done 
me good, I fancy. I’m ever so much stronger than I 
was last winter.’ 

Mrs. Hesslegrave had been longing for some time to 
interpose in this very curious and doubtful conver- 
sation; and now she could restrain her desire no 
longer. 

‘ You do it for your health, then, I suppose ?’ she 
ventured to suggest, as if on purpose to save her own 
self-respect and the credit of Eufus Mortimer’s society. 
‘ You’ve been ordered it by the doctor ?’ 

‘ Oh, dear no ! I do it for my livelihood,’ Arnold 
Willoughby answ^ered stoutly, not in the least ashamed. 
* I’m a sailor by trade ; I go to sea all summer, and I 
paint all winter. It’s a very good alternation. I find 
it suits me.’ 

This was too much for Mrs. Hesslegrave. She felt 
that Mortimer, though he had a perfect right, of 
course, to choose his own friends where he liked, 
ought not to have exposed dear Kathleen and herself 
to the contagion, so to speak, of such strange acquaint- 
ances. 

‘ Dear me !’ she cried suddenly, looking up at the big 
brick tower that rose sheer just in front of them : ‘here 
we are at the Frari ! — Kathleen, didn’t you say you 
wanted to go in and look again at that picture of What’s- 
his-name’s — Ah, yes, Tintoretto’s — in the Scuola di 
San Eocco? — Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Mortimer; 
we won’t trouble you to wait for us. Kathleen knows 
her way on foot all over Venice. She can get from 
place to place in the most wonderful fashion, from end 
to end of the town, by these funny little calli. It 
ivas so kind of you to give us a lift so far. — Here, 
Kathleen; step out! Good-morning, Mr. Mortimer; 


6o 


AT MARKET VALUE 


your gondola’s just charming. — Good-morning, Mr. — 
ah — I forget your friend’s name ; oh, of course : Mr. 
Willoughby.’ 

The inevitable old man with a boat-hook was hold- 
ing the gondola by this time to the bank, and extend- 
ing his hat for the expected penny. Mrs. Hesslegrave 
stepped out, with her most matronly air, looking a 
dignified Juno. Kathleen stepped after her on to the 
slippery stone pavement, green-grown by the water’s 
edge. As she did so, she turned, with her sweet 
slight figure, and waved a friendly good-bye to the two 
painters, the rich and the poor impartially. 

‘And I hope, Mr. Mortimer,’ she called out in her 
cheeriest tone, ‘ you’ll bring Mr. Willoughby with you 
next week to our usual tea-and-talk at four on Wednes- 
day.’ 

As for poor Mrs. Hesslegrave, she stood speechless 
for a second, dumfounded with dismay, on the stone 
steps of the Frari. What could Kathleen be thinking 
of ? That dreadful man ! And this was the very 
misfortune she had been bent on averting ! 


CHAPTEK VI. 

A CASE OF CONSCIENCE. 

But the cup of Mrs. Hesslegrave’s humiliation was not 
yet full. A moment’s pause lost all— and lo ! the 
floodgates of an undesirable acquaintance were opened 
upon her. 

It was charity that did it— pure feminine charity, 
not unmingled with a faint sense of how noblesse oblige, 
and what dignity demands from a potential Lady 


A CASE OF CONSCIENCE 


6i 


Bountiful. For the inevitable old man, with a ram- 
shackled boat-hook in his wrinkled brown hand, and 
no teeth to boast of, who invariably moors your 
gondola to the shore while you alight from the prow, 
and holds his hat out afterwards for a few loose soldi, 
bowed low to the ground in his picturesque rags as 
Mrs. Hesslegrave passed him. Now, proper respect 
for her superior position always counted for much with 
Mrs. Hesslegrave. She paused for a moment at the 
top of the mouldering steps in helpless search for an 
elusive pocket. But the wisdom and foresight of her 
London dressmaker had provided for this contingency 
well beforehand by concealing it so far back among the 
recesses of her gown that she fumbled in vain and 
found no soldi. In her difficulty she turned with an 
appealing glance to Kathleen. 

‘ Have you got any coppers, dear ?’ she inquired in 
her most mellifluous voice. And Kathleen forthwith 
proceeded in like manner to prosecute her search for 
them in the labyrinthine folds of her own deftly- 
screened pocket. 

On what small twists and turns of circumstance does 
our whole life hang ! Kathleen’s fate hinged entirely 
on that momentary delay, coupled with the equally 
accidental meeting at the doors of the Academy. For 
while she paused and hunted, as the old man stood 
bowing and scraping by the water’s edge, and consider- 
ing to himself, with his obsequious smile, that after so 
long a search the forestieri couldn’t decently produce 
in the end any smaller coin than half a lira — Kufus 
Mortimer, perceiving the cause of their indecision, 
stepped forward in the gondola with his own purse 
open. At the very same instant, too, Arnold 
Willoughby, half-forgetful of his altered fortunes, and 


62 


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conscious only of the fact that the incident was dis- 
composing at the second for a lady, pulled out loose 
his scanty stock of available cash, and selected from it 
the smallest silver coin he happened to possess, which 
chanced to be a piece of fifty centesimi. Then, while 
Mortimer was hunting among his gold to find a franc, 
Arnold handed the money hastily to the cringing old 
bystander. The man in the picturesque rags closed 
his wrinkled brown hand on it with a satisfied grin ; 
and Mortimer tried to find another half-franc among 
the folds of his purse to repay on the spot his sailor 
acquaintance. But Arnold answered with such a firm 
air of quiet dignity, ‘ No, thank you ; allow me to 
settle it,’ that Mortimer, after a moment of ineffectual 
remonstrance — ‘ But this is my gondola ’ — was fain to 
hold his peace ; and even Mrs. Hesslegrave was con- 
strained to acquiesce in the odd young man’s whim 
with a murmured, ‘ Oh, thank you.’ After that, she 
felt she could no longer be frigid — till the next oppor- 
tunity. Meanwhile, when Kathleen suggested in her 
gentlest and most enticing voice, ‘ Why don’t you two 
step out and look at the Tmtorettos with us ?’ — Mrs. 
Hesslegrave recognised that there was nothing for it 
now but to smile and look pleased and pretend she 
really liked the strange young man’s society. 

So they went into the Scuola di San Eocco together. 
But Eufus Mortimer, laudably anxious that his friend 
should expend no more of his hard-earned cash on 
such unseasonable gallantries, took good care to go on 
a few paces ahead and take tickets for the whole party 
before Mrs. Hesslegrave and Kathleen, escorted by the 
unsuspecting Arnold, had turned the corner by the 
rearing red church of the Frari. The elder lady 
arrived at the marble-coated front of the Scuola not a 


A CASE OF CONSCIENCE 


63 


little out of breath ; for she was endowed with asthma, 
and she hated to walk even the few short steps from the 
gondola to the tiny piazza ; which was one of the 
reasons, indeed, why Kathleen, most patient and 
dutiful and considerate of daughters, had chosen 
Venice rather than any other Italian town as the 
scene on which to specialize her artistic talent. For 
nowhere on earth is locomotion so cheap or so easy as 
in the city of canals, where a gondola will convey you 
from end to end of the town, without noise or jolting, 
at the modest expense of eightpence sterling. Even 
Mrs. Hesslegrave, however, could not resist after a 
while the contagious kindliness of Arnold Willoughby’s 
demeanour. ’Twas such a novelty to him to be in 
ladies’ society nowadays, that he rose at once to the 
occasion, and developed at one bound from a confirmed 
misogynist into an accomplished courtier. The fact 
of it was he had been taken by Kathleen^s frank 
gratitude that day at the Academy ; and he was really 
touched this afternoon by her evident recollection of 
him, and her anxiety to show him all the politeness in 
her power. Never before since he had practically 
ceased to be Earl of Axminster had any woman 
treated him with half so much consideration. Arnold 
Willoughby was almost tempted in his own heart to 
try whether or not he had hit here, by pure accident 
of fate, upon that rare soul which could accept him 
and love him for the true gold that was in him, and 
not for the guinea stamp of which he had purposely 
divested himself. 

As they entered the great hall, Campagna’s master- 
piece, its walls richly dight with Tintoretto’s frescoes, 
Arnold Willoughby drew back involuntarily at the 
first glance with a little start of astonishment. 


64 


AT MARKET VALUE 


'Dear me,’ he cried, turning round in his surprise 
to Kathleen, and twisting his left hand in a lock of 
hair behind his ear — which was a trick he had when- 
ever he was deeply interested — * what amazing people 
these superb old Venetians were, after all ! Why, 
one’s never at the end of them ! What a picture it 
gives one of their magnificence and their wealth, this 
sumptuous council-house of one unimportant brother- 
hood !’ 

‘ It is fine,’ Mortimer interposed, with a little smile 
of superiority, as one who knew it well of old. ‘ It’s 
a marvel of decoration. Then, I suppose, from 
what you say, this is the first time you’ve been here ?’ 

'Yes, the very first time,’ Arnold admitted at once 
with that perfect frankness which was his most 
charming characteristic. ' Though I’ve lived here so 
long, there are in Venice a great many interiors I’ve 
never seen. Outside, I think I know every nook and 
corner of the smallest side-canals, and the remotest 
calli, about as well as anybody; for I’m given to 
meandering on foot round the town ; and it’s only on 
foot one can ever really get to know the whole of 
Venice. Perhaps you wouldn’t believe it, but there 
isn’t a single house on all the islands that make up the 
town which can’t be reached on one’s own legs from 
every other by some circuit of bridges, without one’s 
ever having to trust to a ferry-boat or a gondola. But 
of course you must know the tortuous twists and turns 
to get round to some of them. So, outside at least, I 
know my Venice thoroughly. But inside — ah, there ! 
if you except St. Mark’s and a few other churches — 
with, of course, the Academy — I hardly know it at all. 
There are dozens of places you could take me to like 
this that I never stepped inside yet.’ 


A CASE OF CONSCIENCE 


65 


Kathleen was just going to ask, ‘ Why ?’ when the 
answer came of itself to her. In order to gain admit- 
tance to most of these interiors, you have to pay a 
franc ; and she remembered now, with a sudden burst 
of surprise, that a franc was a very appreciable sum 
indeed to their new acquaintance. So she altered her 
phrase to : 

‘ Well, I’m very glad at least we met you to-day, 
and have had the pleasure of bringing you for the 
first time to San Kocco.’ 

And it was a treat. Arnold couldn’t deny that. 
He roamed round those great rooms in a fever of 
delight, and gazed with the fulness of a painter’s soul 
at Tintoretto’s masterpieces. The gorgeous brilliancy 
of Titian’s Annunciation, the naturalistic reality of the 
Adoration of the Magi, the beautiful penitent Magda- 
lene beside the fiery cloud-flakes of her twilight 
landscape — he gloated over them all with cultivated 
appreciation. Kathleen marvelled to herself how a 
mere common sailor could ever have imbibed such an 
enthralling love for the highest art, and still more 
how he could ever have learned to speak of its inner 
meaning in such well-chosen phrases. It fairly took 
her breath away when the young man in the jersey 
and blue woollen cap stood entranced before the fresco 
of the Pool of Bethesda, with its grand far-away land- 
scape, and mused to himself aloud as it were : 

‘ What a careless giant he was, to be sure, this 
Tintoretto ! Why, he seems just to fling his paint 
haphazard upon the wall, as if it cost him no more 
trouble to paint an Ascension than to sprawl his brush 
over the face of the plaster : and yet — there comes out 
in the end a dream of soft colour, a poem in neutral 
tints, a triumphant paean of virile imagining.’ 

5 


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‘ Yes ! they’re beautiful,’ Kathleen answered : ‘ex- 
ceedingly beautiful. And what you say of them is so 
true. They’re dashed off with such princely ease. 
You put into words what one would like to say one’s 
self, but doesn’t know how to.’ 

And, indeed, even Mrs. Hesslegrave was forced to 
admit in her own mind that, in spite of his rough clothes 
and his weather-beaten face, the young man seemed to 
have ideas and language above his station. Not that 
Mrs. Hesslegrave thought any the better of him on that 
account. Why can’t young men be content to remain 
in the rank in life in which circumstances and the law 
of the land have placed them ? Of course there were 
Burns, and Shakespeare, and Keats, and so forth — 
not one of them a born gentleman : and Kathleen was 
always telling her how that famous Giotto (whose 
angular angels she really couldn’t with honesty 
pretend to admire) was at first nothing more than a 
mere Tuscan shepherd boy. But, then, all these were 
geniuses; and if a man is a genius, of course that’s 
quite another matter. Though, to be sure, in our own 
day, genius has no right to crop up in a common 
sailor. It discomposes one’s natural views of life, and 
leads to such unpleasant and awkward positions. 

When they had looked at the Tintorettos through the 
whole history of the Testament, from the Annuncia- 
tion downstairs with the child-like Madonna to the 
Ascension in the large hall on the upper landing, they 
turned to go out and resume their places in the wait- 
ing gondola. And here a new misfortune lay in wait 
for Mrs. Hesslegrave. ’Twas a day of evil chances. 
For as she and Eufus Mortimer took their seats in the 
stern on those neatly-padded cushions which rejoiced 
her soul, Kathleen, to her immense surprise and 


A CASE OF CONSCIENCE 


67 


no small internal annoyance, abruptly announced her 
intention of walking home over the bridge by herself, 
so as to pass the colour-shop in the Calle San Moise. 
She wanted some ultramarine, she said, for the picture 
she was going to paint in the corner of the Giudecca. 
Of course, Arnold Willoughby insisted upon accom- 
panying her ; and so, to complete that morning’s 
mishaps, Mrs. Hesslegrave had the misery of seeing 
her daughter walk off, through a narrow and darkling 
Venetian street, accompanied on her way by that 
awful man, whom Mrs. Hesslegrave had been doing all 
she knew to shake off from the very first moment she 
had the ill-luck to set eyes on him. 

Not that Kathleen had the slightest intention of 
disobeying or irritating or annoying her mother. 
Nothing, indeed, could have been further from her 
innocent mind ; it was merely that she didn’t under- 
stand or suspect Mrs. Hesslegrave’s objection to the 
frank young sailor. Too honest to doubt him, she 
missed the whole point of her mother’s dark hints. 
So she walked home with Arnold, conscience free, 
without the faintest idea she was doing anything that 
could possibly displease Mrs. Hesslegrave. They 
walked on, side by side, through strange little lanes, 
bounded high on either hand by lofty old palaces, which 
raised their mildewed fronts and antique arched 
windows above one another’s heads, in emulous striv- 
ing towards the scanty sunshine. As for Arnold 
Willoughby, he darted round the corners like one that 
knew them intimately. Kathleen had flattered her 
soul she could find her way tolerably well on foot 
through the best part of Venice: but she soon dis- 
covered that Arnold Willoughby knew how to thread 
his path through that seeming labyrinth far more 


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easily than she could do. Here and there he would 
cross some narrow high-pitched bridge over a petty 
canal, where market-boats from the mainland stood 
delivering vegetables at gloomy portals that opened 
close down to the water’s edge, or woodmen from the 
hills, with heavily-laden barges, handed fagots through 
grated windows to bare-headed and yellow-haired 
Venetian housewives. Eagged shutters and iron bal- 
conies overhung the green waterway. Then, again, 
he would skirt for awhile some ill- scented Eio, where 
strings of onions hung out in the sun from every 
second door, and cheap Madonnas in gilt and painted 
wood sat enshrined in plaster niches behind burning 
oil-lamps. On and on he led Kathleen by unknown 
side- streets, past wonderful little squares or flag-paved 
campi, each adorned with its ancient church and its 
slender belfry; over the colossal curve of the Eialto 
with its glittering shops on either side ; and home by 
queer byways, where few feet else save of native 
Venetians ever ventured to penetrate. Now and again 
round the corners came the echoing cries, ‘ StaU,' 

‘ Preme ’ and some romantic gondola with its covered 
trappings, like a floating black hearse, would glide 
past like lightning. Well as Kathleen knew the town, 
it was still a revelation to her. She walked on, 
entranced, with a painter’s eye, through that ever- 
varying, ever-moving, ever-enchanting panorama. 

And they talked as they went ; the young sailor- 
painter talked on and on, frankly, delightfully, charm- " 
ingly. He talked of Kathleen and her art ; of what 
she would work at this winter ; of where he himself 
meant to pitch his easel ; of the chances of their both 
choosing some neighbouring subject. Confidence be- 
gets confidence. He talked so much about Kathleen, 


A CASE OF CONSCIENCE 


69 


and drew her on so about her aims and aspirations in 
art, that Kathleen in turn felt compelled for very 
shame to repay the compliment, and to ask him much 
about himself and his mode of working. Arnold 
Willoughby smiled and showed those exquisite teeth 
of his when she questioned him first. ‘ It’s the one 
subject,’ he answered — ‘ self — on which they say all 
men are fluent and none agreeable.’ But he belied 
his own epigram, Kathleen thought, as he continued : 
for he talked about himself, and yet he talked delight- 
fully. It was so novel to hear a man so discuss the 
question of his own place in life, as though it mattered 
little whether he remained a common sailor or rose to 
be reckoned a painter and a gentleman. He never 
even seemed to feel the immense gulf which in 
Kathleen’s eyes separated the two callings. It 
appeared to be to him a mere matter of convenience 
which of the two he followed. He talked of them 
so calmly as alternative trades in the pursuit of 
which a man might if he chose earn an honest live- 
lihood. 

‘ But surely you feel the artist’s desire to create 
beautiful things?’ Kathleen cried at last. ‘They’re 
not quite on the same level with you — fine art and 
sail-reefing !’ 

That curious restrained curl was just visible for a 
second round' the delicate corners of Arnold Wil- 
loughby’s honest mouth. 

‘ You compel me to speak of myself,’ he said, ‘ when 
I would much rather be speaking of somebody or 
something else ; but if I must, I will tell you.’ 

‘ Ho,’ Kathleen said, drawing close, with more 
eagerness in her manner than Mrs. Hesslegrave would 
have considered entirely ladylike. ‘ It’s so much 


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more interesting.’ And then, fearing she had perhaps 
gone a little too far, she blushed to her ear-tips. 

Arnold noticed that dainty blush — it became her 
wonderfully — and was confirmed by it in his good 
opinion of Kathleen’s disinterestedness. Could this 
indeed be the one woman on earth to whom he could 
really give himself ? — the one woman who could take 
a man for what he was in himself, not for what the 
outside world chose to call him ? He was half inclined 
to think so. 

‘Well,’ he continued with a reflective air, ‘there’s 
much to be said for art — and much also for the 
common sailor. I may be right, or I may be wrong ; 
I don’t want to force anybody else into swallowing my 
opinions wholesale ; I’m far too uncertain about them 
myself for that ; but as far as my own conduct goes 
(which is all I have to answer for), why, I must base 
it upon them ; I must act as seems most just and 
right to my own conscience. Now, I feel a sailor’s 
life is one of undoubted usefulness to the community. 
He’s employed in carrying commodities of universally 
acknowledged value from the places where they’re 
produced to the places where they’re needed. Nobody 
can deny that that’s a useful function. The man who 
does that can justify his life and his livelihood to his 
fellows. No caviller can ever accuse him of eating his 
bread unearned, an idle drone, at the table of the 
commonalty. That’s why I determined to be a 
common sailor. It was work I could do ; work that 
suited me well ; work I felt my conscience could wholly 
approve of.’ 

‘ I see,’ Kathleen answered, very much taken aback. 
It had never even occurred to her that a man could so 
choose his calling in life on conscientious rather than 


A CASE OF CONSCIENCE 


71 


on personal grounds; could attach more importance 
to the usefulness and lawfulness of the trade he took 
up than to the money to be made at it. The earnest- 
looking sailor-man in the rough woollen clothes was 
opening up to her new perspectives of moral possi- 
bility. 

‘ But didn’t you long for art too ?’ she went on after 
a brief pause ; ‘ you who have so distinct a natural 
vocation, so keen a taste for form and colour ?’ 

Arnold Willoughby looked hard at her. 

‘ Yes,’ he answered frankly, with a scrutinizing 
glance. ‘I did. I longed for it. But at first I kept 
the longing sternly down. I thought it was wrong 
of me even to wish to indulge it. I had put my hand 
to the plough, and I didn’t like to look back again. 
Still, when my health began to give way, I saw things 
somewhat differently. I was as anxious as ever, then, 
to do some work in the world that should justify my 
existence, so to speak, to my fellow-creatures ; anxious 
to feel I didn’t sit, a mere idle mouth, at the banquet 
of humanity. But I began to perceive that man 
cannot live by bread alone ; that the useful trades, 
though they are, after all, at bottom the noblest and 
most ennobling, do not fill up the sum of human exist- 
ence : that we have need, too, of books, of poetry, of 
pictures, statues, music. So I determined to give up 
my life, half-and-half, to either— to sail by summer, 
and paint by winter, if only I could earn enough by 
painting to live upon. For my first moral postulate is 
that every man ought to be ashamed of himself if he 
can’t win wage enough by his own exertions to keep 
him going. That is, in fact, the one solid and practical 
test of his usefulness to his fellow-creatures — whether 
or not they are willing to pay him that he may keep 


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at work for them. If he can’t do that, then I hold 
without doubt he is a moral failure. And it’s his duty 
to take himself sternly in hand till he fits himself at 
once for being the equal in this respect of the navvy 
or the scavenger.’ 

‘ But art drew you on ?’ Kathleen said, much 
wondering in her soul at this strange intrusion of con- 
science into such unfamiliar fields. 

‘Yes, art drew me on,’ Arnold Willoughby answered; 
‘ and though I had my doubts, I allowed it to draw 
me. I felt I was following my own inclination ; but 
I felt, too, I was doing right to some extent, if only I 
could justify myself by painting pictures good enough 
to give pleasure to others : the test of their goodness 
being always saleability. The fact is, the sea didn’t 
satisfy all the wants of my nature ; and since we 
men are men, not sheep or monkeys, I hold we are 
justified m indulging to the full these higher and 
purely human or civilized tastes, just as truly as the 
lower ones. So I determined, after all, to take to 
art for half my livelihood — not, I hope, without con- 
scientious justification. For I would never wish to do 
anything in life which might not pass the honest 
scrutiny of an impartial jury of moral inquisitors. — 
Why, here we are at the Piazza ! I’d no idea we’d 
got so far yet !’ 

‘ Nor I either !’ Kathleen exclaimed. ‘I’m sorry for 
it, Mr. Willoughby — for this is all so interesting. — But, 
at any rate, you’re coming with Mr. Mortimer on 
Wednesday.’ 

Arnold Willoughby’s face flushed all aglow with 
pleasure. The misogynist in him was thoroughly over- 
come; nothing remained but the man chivalrously 
grateful to a beautiful woman for her undisguised 


MAKING THEIR MINDS UP 


73 


interest. He raised his hat, radiant. ‘ Thank you 
so much,’ he answered simply, like the gentleman 
that he was. ‘ You may be sure I won’t forget it. 
How kind of you to ask me !’ 

For he knew it was the common sailor in rough 
clothes she had invited, not Albert Ogilvie Eedburn, 
seventh Earl of Axminster. 


CHAPTEK VH. 

MAKING THEIE MINDS UP. 

That winter through, in spite of Mrs. Hesslegrave, 
Kathleen saw a great deal of the interesting sailor who 
had taken to painting. Half by accident, half by 
design, they had chosen their pitches very close 
together. Both of them were painting on that quaint 
old quay, the Fondamenta delle Zattere, overlooking 
the broad inlet or Canal della Giudecca, where most 
of the sea-going craft of Venice lie at anchor, unload- 
ing. Kathleen’s canvas was turned inland, towards 
the crumbling old church of San Trovaso, and the 
thick group of little bridges, curved high in the 
middle, that span the minor canals of that half- 
deserted quarter. She looked obliquely down two of 
those untrodden streets 'at once, so as to get a double 
glimpse of two sets of bridges at all possible angles, 
and afford herself a difficult lesson in the perspective 
of arches. Midway between the two rose the tapering 
campanile of the quaint old church, with the acacias 
by its side, that hang their drooping branches and 
feathery foliage into the stagnant water of the placid 
Eio. But Arnold Willoughby’s easel was turned in 


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the opposite direction, towards the seaward runlets 
and the open channel where the big ships lay moored ; 
he loved better to paint the sea-going vessels he knew 
and understood so well — the thick forest of masts ; the 
russet-brown sails of the market-boats from Mestre ; 
the bright reds and greens of the Chioggia fisher-craft ; 
the solemn gray of the barges that bring fresh water 
from Fusina. It was maritime Venice he could best re- 
produce ; while Kathleen’s lighter brush reflected rather 
the varying moods and tessellated floor of the narrow 
canals, which are to the sea-girt city what streets and 
alleys are to more solid towns of the mainland. 

Thus painting side by side, they saw much of one 
another. Eufus Mortimer, who cherished a real liking 
for Kathleen, grew jealous at times of the penniless 
sailor-man. It seemed to him a pity, indeed, that Kath- 
leen should get entangled with a fellow like that, who 
could never, by any possibility, be in a position to marry 
her. But then Mortimer, being an American, had a 
profound faith at bottom in the persuasive worth of the 
almighty dollar; and though he was really a good 
fellow with plenty of humanity and generous feeling, 
he didn’t doubt that in the end, when it came to 
settling down, Kathleen would prefer the solid advan- 
tages of starting in life as a rich Philadelphian’s wife 
to the sentimental idea of love in a cottage — and a poor 
one at that — with a destitute sailor who dabbled like 
an amateur in marine painting. However, being a 
prudent man, and knowing that proximity in these 
affairs is half the battle, Mortimer determined to pitch 
his own canvas in the same part of the town, and to 
paint a picture close by to Kathleen and Willoughby. 
This involved on his part no small departure from his 
usual practice ; for Mortimer was by choice a confirmed 


MAKING THEIR MINDS UP 


75 


figure-painter, who worked in a studio from the living 
model. But he managed to choose an outdoor 
subject combining figure with landscape, and dashed 
away vigorously at a background of brown ware- 
houses and mouldering arches, with a laughing group 
of gay Venetian models picturesquely posed as a merry 
christening-party, by the big doors of San Trovaso. 

Money gives a man a pull ; and Arnold Willoughby 
felt it when every morning Kathleen floated up to her 
work in Kufus Mortimer’s private gondola, with Mrs. 
Hesslegrave leaning back (in her capacity of chaperon) 
on those well-padded cushions, and the two handsome 
gondoliers waiting obsequious and attentive by the 
marble steps for their employer’s orders. But it was 
just what he wanted. For he could see with his own 
eyes that Mortimer was paying very marked court to 
the pretty English girl-artist ; and, indeed, Mortimer, 
after his country’s wont, made no attempt to disguise 
that patent fact in any way. On the other hand, 
Arnold perceived that Kathleen seemed to pay quite 
as much attention to the penniless sailor as to the 
American millionaire. And that was exactly what 
Arnold Willoughby desired to find out. He could get 
any number of women to flutter eagerly and anxiously 
round Lord Axminster’s chair ; but he would never 
care to take any one of them all for better, for worse, 
unless she was ready to give up money and position 
and more eligible offers for the sake of Arnold Wil- 
loughby, the penniless sailor and struggling artist. 

And, indeed, in spite of his well-equipped gondola, 
Bufus Mortimer didn’t somehow have things all his 
own way. If Kathleen came down luxuriously every 
morning in the Cristoforo Colombo, she oftenest re- 
turned to the Piazza on foot, by devious byways, with 


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Arnold Willoughby. She liked those walks ever so 
much : Mr. Willoughby was always such a delightful 
companion; and, sailor or no sailor, he had really 
picked up an astonishing amount of knowledge about 
Venetian history, antiquities and architecture. On 
one such day, towards early spring, as they walked 
together through the narrow lanes, overshadowed by 
mighty cornices, where one could touch the houses on 
either hand as one went, a pretty little Italian girl, 
about five years old, ran hastily out of a musty shop 
over whose door hung salt fish and long strings of 
garlic. She was singing to herself as she ran a queer 
old song in the Venetian dialect — 

‘ Yustu che mi te insegna a navegar ? 

Yate a far una barca o una batela 

but when her glance fell on Arnold Willoughby she 
looked up at him with a merry twinkle in her big 
brown eyes, and dropped him a little curtsey of the 
saucy Southern pattern. ‘ Buon giorno, sior,’ she cried, 
in the liquid Venetian patois. And Arnold answered 
with a pleasant smile of friendly recognition, ‘ Buon 
giorno, piccola.’ 

‘ You know her ?’ Kathleen asked, half wondering 
to herself how her painter had made the acquaintance 
of the little golden-haired Venetian. 

‘ Oh dear yes,’ the young man answered with a 
smile. ‘ That’s Cecca, that little One. She knows 
me very well.’ He hesitated a moment; then on 
purpose, as if to try her, he went on very quietly : ‘ In 
point of fact, I lodge there.’ 

Kathleen was conscious of a distinct thrill of sur- 
prise, not unmixed with something like horror or 
disgust. She had grown accustomed by this time to 
her companion’s rough clothes, and to his sailor-like 


MAKING THEIR MINDS UP 


77 


demeanour, redeemed as it was in her eyes by his 
artistic feeling, and his courteous manners, which she 
always felt in her heart were those of a perfect gentle- 
man. But it gave her a little start even now to find 
that the man who could talk so beautifully about 
Gentile Bellini and Vittore Carpaccio — the man who 
taught her to admire and understand for the first 
time the art of the very earliest Venetian painters; 
the man who so loved the great Komanesque arcades 
of the Fondaco dei Turchi, and who gloated over the 
details of the mosaics in St. Mark’s — could consent to 
live in a petty Italian shop, reeking with salt cod and 
overhanging the noisome bank of a side-canal more 
picturesque than sweet- smelling. She showed her 
consternation in her face ; for Arnold, who was watch- 
ing her close, went on with a slight shadow on his 
frank sun-burnt forehead : ‘ Yes, I live in there. I 
thought you’d think the worse of me when you came 
to know it.’ 

Thus openly challenged, Kathleen turned round to 
him with her fearless eyes, and said perhaps a little 
more than she would ever have said had he not driven 
her to avow it. 

‘ Mr. Willoughby,’ she answered, gazing straight 
into his honest face, ^ it isn’t a pretty place, and I 
wouldn’t like to live in it myself, I confess; but I 
don’t think the worse of you. I respect you so much, 
I really don’t believe anything of that sort — of any 
sort, perhaps — could ever make me think the worse of 
you. So there ! I’ve told you.’ 

‘ Thank you,’ Arnold answered low. And then he 
was silent. Neither spoke for some moments. Each 
was thinking : ‘ Have I said too much ?’ And Arnold 
Willoughby was also thinking very seriously in his 


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own mind : ‘ Having gone so far, ought I not now to 
go farther ?’ 

However, being a prudent man, he reflected to him- 
self that if he could hardly pay his own way as yet by 
his art, he certainly could not pay somebody else’s. 
So he held his tongue for the moment, and went home 
a little later, to his single room overlooking the side- 
canal, to ruminate at his leisure over this new face to 
his circumstances. 

And Kathleen, too, went home — to think much 
about Arnold Willoughby. Both young people, in 
fact, spent the best part of that day in thinking of 
nothing else save one another ; which was a tolerably 
good sign to the experienced observer that they were 
falling in love, whether they knew it or knew it not. 

For when Kathleen got home, she shut herself up 
by herself in her own pretty room with the dainty 
wall-paper, and leaned out of the window. It was a 
beautiful window, on the Grand Canal, quite close to 
the Piazza, and the Doges’ Palace, and the Rivi degli 
Schiavoni ; and it looked across the inlet towards the 
Dogana di Mare, and the dome of Santa Maria, with 
the campanile of San Giorgio on its lonely mud-island 
in the middle distance. Beyond lay a spacious field 
of burnished gold, the shallow water of the lagoon in 
the full flood of sunshine. But Kathleen had no eyes 
that lovely afternoon for the creeping ships that glided 
in and out with stately motion through the tortuous 
channel which leads between islets of gray slime to 
the mouth of the Lido and the open sea. Great red 
lateen sails swerved and luffed unnoticed. All she 
could think of now was Arnold Willoughby, and his 
lodgings at the salt-fish shop. Her whole soul was 
deeply stirred by that strange disclosure. 


MAKING THEIR MINDS UP 


79 


She might have guessed it before : yet, now she 
knew it, it frightened her. Was it right of her, she 
asked herself over and over again, to let herself fall in 
love, as she felt she was doing, with a common sailor, 
who could live contentedly in a small Italian magazen, 
inside whose doors she herself would hardly consent 
to show her face ? Was it lady-like ? was it womanly 
of her ? 

She had her genuine doubts. Few women would 
have felt otherwise. For to women the conventions 
count for more than to men ; and the feelings of class 
are more deep-seated and more persistent, especially 
in all that pertains to love and marriage. A man can 
readily enough ‘ marry beneath him but to a woman 
it is a degradation to give herself away to what she 
thinks an inferior. An inferior ? Even as she thought 
it, Kathleen Hesslegrave’s mind revolted with a rush 
against the base imputation. He was not her inferior ; 
rather, if it came to that, be he sailor or gentleman, 
he was her superior in every way. The man who 
could paint, who could think, who could talk as he 
could, the man who cherished such high ideals of life, 
of conduct, of duty, was everyone’s equal and most 
people’s superior. He was her own superior. In cold 
blood she said it. He could think and dare and attain 
to things she herself at her best could but blindly 
grope after. 

In her diary that afternoon (for she had acquired 
the bad habit of keeping a diary) Kathleen wrote down 
all these things, as she was wont to write down her 
inmost thoughts ; and she even ended with the direct 
avowal to herself, ‘ I love him ! I love him ! If he 
asks me,^ I will accept him.’ She locked it up in her 
safest drawer, but she was not ashamed of it. 


AT MARKET VALUE 




At the very same moment, however, Arnold Wil- 
loughby for his part was leaning out of his window in 
turn, in the wee top room of the house above the salt- 
fish shop in the tiny side-street, with his left hand 
twisted in the lock behind his ear, after that curious 
fashion of his, and was thinking — of what else save 
Kathleen Hesslegrave ? 

It was a pretty enough window in its way, too, that 
leaded lattice on the high fourth floor in the Calle del 
Paradise ; and, as often happens in Venetian side- 
streets, when you mount high enough in the skyward- 
clambering houses, it commanded a far more beautiful 
and extensive view than any stranger could imagine 
as he looked up from without at the narrow chink of 
blue between the tall rows of opposite stonework. For 
it gave upon a side-canal full of life and bustle ; and 
it looked out just beyond upon a quaint round tower 
with a Komanesque staircase winding spirally outside 
it, and disclosing glimpses in the further distance of 
spires and domes and campanili innumerable. But it 
wasn’t of the staircase, or the crowded canal, or the 
long shallow barges laden with eggs and fruit, that 
Arnold Willoughby was just then thinking. His mind 
was wholly taken up with Kathleen Hesslegrave and 
the new wide problems she laid open before him. 

He knew he was in love with her. He recognised 
he was in love with her. And what was more, from 
the way she had said those words, ‘ T respect you so 
much, I don’t believe anything on earth could ever 
make me think the worse of you,’ he felt pretty sure 
in his own mind she loved him in return, and had 
divined his love for her. Even his native modesty 
would not allow him to deceive himself on that score 
any longer. For he was a modest man, little given to 


MAKING THEIR MINDS UP 8i 

fancying that women were ^gone on him/ as Mr. 
Eeginald Hesslegrave was wont to phrase it in his 
peculiar dialect. Indeed, Arnold Willoughby had had 
ample cause for modesty in that direction ; Lady Sark 
had taught him by bitter experience to know his 
proper place ; and he had never forgotten that one 
sharp lesson. She was a simple clergyman’s daughter 
near Oxford when first he met her ; and he had fallen 
in love at once with her beauty, her innocence, her 
seeming simplicity. She rose quickly to an earl. He 
believed in her with all the depth and sincerity of his 
honest nature. There was nobody like Blanche, he 
thought ; nobody so true, so simple-minded, so sweet, 
so trustworthy. A single London season made all the 
difference. Blanche Middleton found herself the 
belle of the year ; and being introduced to the great 
world, through Lord Axminster’s friends, as his 
affianced bride, made the best of her opportunities by 
throwing over one of the poorest earls in England in 
favour of one of the richest and most worthless 
marquises. From that moment, the man who had 
once been Albert Ogilvie Kedburn, Earl of Axminster, 
was never likely to overestimate the immediate effect 
produced by his mere personality on the heart of any 
woman. 

Nevertheless, Arnold Willoughby was not disinclined 
to believe that Kathleen Hesslegrave really and truly 
loved him. Because one woman had gone straight 
from his arms to another man’s bosom, that did not 
prove that all women were incapable of loving. He 
believed Kathleen liked him very much, not only for 
his own sake, but also in spite of prejudices — deeply 
ingrained prejudices, natural enough under the cir- 
cumstances, and which almost every good woman (as 

6 


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good women go) would have shared to the full 
with her. And he began to wonder now whether, 
having gone so far, it was not his duty to go a step 
further and ask her to marry him. A man has no 
right to lead a woman’s heart up to a certain point of 
expectation, and then to draw back without giving her 
at least the chance of accepting him. 

But how could he ask her? That was now the 
question. He certainly wasn’t going to turn his back 
upon his own deliberate determination, and to claim 
once more the title and estates of the earldom of 
Axminster. Having put his hand to the plough, as he 
so often said to himself, for very shame of his man- 
hood, he must never look back again. One way alone 
shone clear before him. Every labourer in England 
could earn enough by his own exertions to support at 
need a wife and family. Arnold Willoughby would 
have felt himself a disgraceful failure if he could not 
succeed in doing what the merest breaker of stones on 
the road could do. He made up his mind at once. 
He must manage to earn such a living for himself as 
would enable him without shame to ask Kathleen 
whether or not she liked him well enough to share it 
with him in future. 

From that day forth, then, this aim was ever 
present in Arnold Willoughby’s mind. He would 
succeed in his art, for the sake of asking the one 
woman on earth he could love to marry him. And 
oftener and oftener as he paced the streets of Venice, 
he twisted his finger round the lock by his ear with 
that curious gesture which was always in his case the 
surest sign of profound preoccupation. 


A DIGRESSION 


83 


CHAPTEK VIIL 

A DIGRESSION. 

In London, meanwhile, Mr. Eeginald Hesslegrave, to 
use his own expressive phrase, was * going it.’ And 
few young gentlemen with an equally exiguous income 
knew how to ‘go it ’ at the same impetuous pace as 
Mr. Eeginald Hesslegrave. That very same evening, 
indeed, as he walked down the Strand arm-in-arm 
with his chum, Charlie Owen — the only other fellow 
in the office who fulfilled to the letter Mr. Eeginald’s 
exalted ideal of ‘ what a gentleman ought to be ’ — he 
stopped for a moment opposite the blushing window 
of a well-known sporting paper to observe the result 
of the first big race of the season. Mr. Eeginald, 
as is the wont of his kind, had backed the favourite. 
He drew a long breath of disappointment as he 
scanned the telegram giving the result. ‘ Amber Witch 
wins in a canter,’ he murmured with marked disgust 
to his sympathizing companion. ‘A rank outsider !’ 

‘ Pipped again ?’ Charlie Owen inquired in the 
peculiar dialect at which they were both experts. 

And Eeginald Hesslegrave answered : 

‘ Pipped again ! For a tenner !’ with manly resig- 
nation. He was sustained under this misfortune, 
indeed, by the consoling reflection that the ‘ tenner ’ 
he had risked on Yorkshire Lass would come in the 
end out of Kathleen’s pocket. It’s a thing to be 
ashamed of, for a gentleman, of course, to have a 
sister who is obliged to dabble in paint for a liveli- 
hood : but, from the practical point of view, it has its 
advantages also. And Eeggie found it a distinct advan- 


84 


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tage during the racing season that he was able to draw 
upon Kathleen’s earnings for unlimited loans, which 
were never repaid, it is true, but which were described 
as such in order to save undue wear and tear to Mr. 
Keginald’s delicate feelings. It doesn’t ‘ look well ’ to 
ask your sister point-blank for a present of a ten- 
pound note ; but a loan to that amount, from time to 
time, to meet a pressing temporary emergency, is a 
form of advance that never grates for a moment upon 
the most refined susceptibilities. 

‘ That’s a nuisance,’ Charlie Owen responded, with 
a sympathetic, wry face ; ‘ for I suppose you counted 
upon it.’ 

Now, this was exactly what Mr. Eeginald had done, 
after the fashion of the City clerk who fancies himself 
as a judge of horse-flesh ; but he wasn’t going to 
acknowledge it. 

‘ It never does to count upon anything in the 
glorious uncertainty of racing,’ he answered with a 
bounce, swallowing his disappointment in that resigned 
spirit which is born of a confident belief that your 
sister, after all, will have in the end to make good the 
deficit. ‘ Though, to be sure, I ivas in need of it ; for 
I’ve asked Florrie Clarke and her mother to run round 
to the Gaiety for an hour with me this evening ; and 
I can tell you it comes heavy on a fellow, and no mis- 
take, to settle for the grub for Florrie’s mother ! She 
is a dab at lobster salad !’ 

‘ Then, you’re taking them to supper afterwards !’ 
Charlie inquired with admiration. One young fool 
invariably admires another for his courage and nobility 
in spending the money he hasn’t got, to somebody 
else’s final discomfort and detriment. 

Eeginald nodded a careless assent. 


A DIGRESSION 


85 


‘ To Komano’s,’ he answered, with justifiable pride 
in the background of his tone. ‘ When I do the thing 
at all, I like to do it properly ; and Florrie’s the sort 
of girl, don’t you know, who’s accustomed to see 
things done in the very best style ; so I mean to go 
it.’ 

‘What a fellow you are!’ Charlie Owen exclaimed 
with heart-felt admiration. ‘ After a knock-down blow 
like this, that would dishearten most chappies 1’ 

Mr. Eeginald smiled a deprecatory smile of modest 
self-approval. 

‘ Well, I flatter myself I am, a bit of a philosopher,’ 
he admitted with candour, like one who glides lightly 
over his own acknowledged merits. ‘ Why don’t you 
come too ? There’d be room in my box for you.’ 

‘ Does it run to a box, then ?’ Charlie Owen asked, 
open-eyed. 

And Eeggie answered, with an expansive wave of 
his neatly-gloved hand : 

‘ Do you suppose I’d ask Florrie and her mother to 
go in the pit? I imagine I know how to do the thing 
like a gentleman.’ 

‘Well, of course, if you’ve got a box,’ Charlie 
assented with alacrity, ‘ one more or less doesn’t count. 
But still — there’s the supper !’ 

Mr. Eeginald dismissed the sordid suggestion with 
another dainty wave of his well-gloved left. 

‘ When a gentleman asks another gentleman to sup 
with him,’ he observed with sententious dignity, ‘it 
isn’t usual for his guest to make inquiries beforehand 
as to the cost of the entertainment.’ After which 
noble rebuke, Charlie Owen felt it would be positive 
bad manners not to accept with effusion ; and was lost 
in wonder, delight, and awe — as Eeggie intended he 


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should be — at the magnanimity of a chappie who, 
after a loss like that, could immediately launch out 
into fresh extravagance by inviting a friend to a quite 
unnecessary and expensive banquet. What a splendid 
creature the fast young man really is, after all ! and 
how nobly he dispenses unlimited hospitality to all 
and sundry on his relations’ money ! 

So that evening at eight saw Mr. Keginald Hessle- 
grave in full evening dress and a neat hired brougham, 
stopping at the door of the Gaiety Theatre to deposit 
Mrs. Clarke and her daughter Florrie. The party, to 
be sure, was nothing if not correct ; for mamma was 
there to ensure the utmost proprieties ; and Miss 
Florrie herself, who was a well-conducted young lady, 
had no idea of doing anything more decided than 
accepting a box for nothing as affection’s gift from 
the devoted Eeggie. Miss Florrie’s papa was an 
eminently respectable West-end money-lender ; and 
Miss Florrie and her mamma were practically used, in 
the way of business, partly as decoy ducks for unwary 
youth, and partly as a means of recovering at once, in 
presents and entertainments, a portion of the money 
advanced by papa on those familiar philanthropic 
principles of ‘ note-of-hand at sight, without inquiry, 
and no security,’ which so often rouse one’s profound 
esteem and wonder in the advertisement columns of 
the daily"papers. Unfortunately, however, it is found, 
for the most part, in this hard business world of ours, 
that philanthropy like this can only be made to pay 
on the somewhat exorbitant terms of sixty per cent., 
deducted beforehand. But Mr. Eeginald, as it 
happened, was far too small game for either Miss 
Florrie or her papa to fly at ; his friendship for the 
young lady was distinctly a platonic one. She and 


A DIGRESSION 


87 


her mamma used him merely as an amiable young 
fool who could fill in the odd evenings between more 
serious engagements, when papa’s best clients took 
her to the opera with mamma, and presented her with 
a brooch or an amethyst bracelet out of the forty per 
cent, which alone remained to them from papa’s 
munificence. Not that Miss Florrie’s conduct was 
ever anything but the pink of propriety ; with a con- 
nection like papa’s, it was always on the cards that 
she might end (with good luck) by becoming ‘ my lady ’ 
in lieu of accumulated interest on bills renewed ; and 
was it likely that Miss Florrie was going to fiing away 
a first-rate chance in life like that by ill-timed 
entanglements with a penniless clerk in a stockbroker’s 
office? Miss Florrie thought not: she knew her 
market worth too well for such folly ; she might flirt, 
but she perfectly understood where to stop flirtation ; 
meanwhile, she found Mr. Eeginald Hesslegrave an 
agreeable and harmless companion, and an excellent 
wedge of an unobtrusive sort for attacking the narrow 
opening into certain grades of society. It ‘ looks well ’ 
to be seen about with mamma in the company of an 
excellently connected young man of no means at all ; 
people can never accuse you, then, of unmitigated 
fortune-hunting. 

Miss Florrie and her mamma were^most charming 
that evening. Mrs. Hesslegrave herself would have 
been forced to admit they were really most charming. 
The mamma was as well dressed as could reasonably 
be expected — that is to say, not much more over- 
dressed than in the nature of things a money-lender’s 
wife must be ; and her diamonds, ^ Charlie Owen 
remarked with delight, were greatly noted and com- 
mented upon by feminine occupants of neighbouring 


88 


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boxes. As for Eeginald He’sslegrave, he felt the 
evening was what he would himself have described 
as ‘a gigantic success.’ ‘ It’s all going off very well,’ 
he observed with nervous pride to Charlie Owen as 
they paced the corridor, cigarette in mouth, during 
the interval between the acts. 

And Charlie Owen, patting his back, made answer 
emphatically : 

‘ Going off very well, man ! Why, it’s a thundering 
triumph ! What a fellow you are to be sure ! Ices in 
the box and everything ! Clinking ! simply clinking ! 
The eldest son of a duke couldn’t have done the thing 
better. It’s made a distinct impression on the Clarkes, 
I can tell you.’ 

‘ You think so ?’ Eeggie asked, with a proud flush 
of satisfaction. 

‘ Think so ?’ Charlie repeated once more. ‘ Why, I 
can see it with half a glance. Florrie’s gone on you, 
that’s where it is. Visibly to the naked eye, that 
girl’s clean gone on you !’ 

Mr. Eeginald returned to the box feeling half an 
inch taller. He knew himself a lady-killer. And he 
noticed with pride that Miss Florrie and her mamma 
were on terms of bowing acquaintance with a great 
many people in the stalls and dress circle ; the very 
best people ; gentlemen for the most part, it is true, 
but still, a sprinkling of ladies, including among them 
Mrs. Algy Eedburn, who ought by rights to be Lady 
Axminster. And though the ladies returned Miss 
Florrie’ s bows and smiles with a tinge of coldness, 
and seemed disinclined to catch the eagle eye of her 
mamma — who was a stoutish matron of a certain age 
and uncertain waist — it was an undeniable fact that 
those who did catch it were for the most part women 


A DIGRESSION 89 

of title and of social distinction, in the fastest set : so 
that Mr. Eeginald felt himself in excellent society. 

As they were leaving the theatre, while Mrs. Clarke 
and Florrie went off in search of their wraps from the 
ladies’ cloak-room, Eeggie drew Charlie Owen mys- 
teriously aside for a moment. 

‘ Look here, old fellow,’ he said coaxingly, in a 
whispered undertone, button-holing his friend as he 
spoke ; ‘ you’re coming on to supper with us. Could 
you manage to lend me a couple of sovereigns for a 
day or two ?’ 

Charlie Owen looked glum. He pursed his under 
lip. Like Bardolph’s tailor, he liked not the security. 

‘ What’s it for ?’ he asked dubiously. 

Eeggie made a clean breast of it. 

‘ Well, the brougham and things have run into a 
little more than I expected,’ he answered with a forced 
smile ; ‘ and of course we must open a bottle of cham ; 
and if Mrs. Clarke wants a second — she’s a fish at 
fizz, I know — it’d be awkward, don’t you see, if I 
hadn’t quite cash enough to pay the waiter.’ 

‘It would so,’ Charlie responded, screwing up a 
sympathetic but exceedingly doubtful face. 

‘ Do you happen to have a couple of quid about 
you?’ Eeggie demanded once more, with an anxious 
air. 

Charlie Owen melted. 

‘ Well, I have,’ he answered slowly. ‘ But mind 
you, I shall want them on Saturday without fail, to 
pay my landlady. She’s a demon for her rent. 
Eaises blazes if it runs on. Will insist on it weekly. 
Can you promise me faithfully to let me have the oof 
back by Saturday ?’ 

Eeggie drew a sigh of relief. 


go 


AT MARKET VALUE 


‘Honour bright!’ he answered, clutching hard at 
the straw. ‘ It’s all square, I assure you. I’ve 
remittances coming.’ 

‘Where from?’ Charlie continued, not wishing to 
be hard, but still anxious for ‘ the collateral,’ as 
Florrie’s papa would have put it. 

‘ Oh, I’ve telegraphed to-day to my people at Venice,’ 
Eeggie responded airily. But ‘ my people ’ of course 
was a euphemism for ‘ my sister.’ 

‘ And got an answer ?’ Charlie insisted. He didn’t 
want to seem mean, but business is business, and he 
desired to know on what expectations precisely he was 
risking his money. 

‘Yes; here it is,’ Eeggie replied, drawing it out, 
somewhat sheepishly, from the recesses of his pocket. 
He didn’t like to show it, of course ; but he saw too 
well that on no other terms could he be spared the 
eternal disgrace of having to refuse Florrie Clarke’s 
mamma a second bottle of Veuve Clicquot, should she 
choose to demand it. 

Charlie ran his eye over the telegram. It was short 
but satisfactory. 

‘Entirely disapprove. Am sending the money. 
This is the last time. Eemember.— Kathleen.’ 

‘ She always says that,’ Mr. Eeginald interposed in 
an apologetic undertone. 

‘Oh, dear yes; I know; it’s a way they have,’ 
Charlie responded with a tolerant smile, as one who 
was well acquainted with the strange fads of one’s 
people. ‘ How much did you ask her for ?’ 

‘ A tenner,’ Mr. Eeginald responded. 

Charlie Owen drew the coins with slow deliberation 


A DIGRESSION 


91 


from his dress waistcoat pocket. ‘ Well, this is a debt of 
honour,’ he said in a solemn voice, handing them over 
impressively. ‘ You’ll pay me off, of course, before 
you waste any money on paying bills or landlords and 
such-like.’ 

Eeggie slipped the two sovereigns into his trousers- 
pocket with a sigh of relief. ‘ You are a brick, 
Charlie !’ he exclaimed, turning away quite happy, 
and prepared, as is the manner of such young gentle- 
men in general, to spend the whole sum recklessly at 
a single burst on whatever first offered, now he was 
relieved for the moment from his temporary em- 
barrassment. For it is the way of your Eeggies to 
treat a loan as so much cash in hand, dropped down 
from heaven, and to disburse it freely on the nearest 
recipient in light-hearted anticipation of the next 
emergency. 

The supper was universally acknowledged to be the 
success of the evening. It often is, in fact, where the 
allowance of Veuve Clicquot is sufficiently unstinted. 
Mrs. Clarke was most affable, most increasingly 
affable ; and as to Miss Florrie, a pretty little round- 
faced ingenue, with a vast crop of crisp black hair, cut 
short and curled, she was delightful company. It 
was her role in life to flirt ; and she did it for the love 
of it. Eeginald Hesslegrave was a distinctly good- 
looking young man, very well connected, and she 
really liked him. Not, of course, that she would ever 
for a moment have dreamed of throwing herself away 
for life on a man without the means to keep a carriage ; 
but Miss Florrie was one of those modern young ladies 
who sternly dissociate their personal likes and dislikes 
from their matrimonial schemes ; and as a person to 
sup with, to talk to, and to flirt with, she really liked 


92 


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Master Beggie — nay, more, she admired him. For 
he knew how to ‘ go it and ability for ‘ going it ’ was 
in Miss Florrie’s eyes the prince of the vh'tues. It 
was the one that enabled a man, however poor in 
reality, to give her the greatest amount of what she 
lived for — amusement. So Florrie flooded Beggie 
with the light of her round black eyes till he was fairly 
intoxicated with her. She played her crisp curls at 
him with considerable effect, and was charmed when 
he succumbed to them. ’Twas a pity he wasn’t the 
heir to a hundred thousand pounds. If he had been, 
'Miss Florrie thought, she might have got papa to 
discount it offhand on post-obits, and have really 
settled down to a quiet life of balls and theatres in his 
agreeable society. 

So much smitten was Beggie, indeed, that before 
the end of the evening, under the expansive influence 
of that excellent Veuve Clicquot, he remarked chaffingly 
to Florrie, at a moment when Mrs. Clarke was deep 
in talk with Charlie Owen : ‘ I tell you what it is. Miss 
Clarke — or rather Florrie — I shall call you Florrie — 
some day, you and I will have to make a match of it !’ 

Miss Florrie did not resent this somewhat abrupt 
and inartistic method of broaching an important and 
usually serious subject. On the contrary, being an 
easy-going soul, she accepted it as a natural compli- 
ment to her charms, and smiled at it good-humouredly. 
But she answered none the less, with a toss of the 
crisp black curls : ‘ Well, if we’re ever to do that, Mr. 
Hesslegrave, you must find the wherewithal first ; for 
I can tell you I want a carriage and a yacht and a 
house-boat. The man for my heart is the man with 
a house-boat. As soon as you’re in a position to set 
up a house-boat, you may invite me to share it with 


A DIGRESSION 


93 


you. And then ’ — she looked at him archly with a 
witching smile — ‘ I may consider my answer.’ 

She ‘was a taking little thing ! — there was no deny- 
ing it. ‘ Very bad style,’ so the ladies in the stalls 
remarked to one another, as they scanned her through 
their opera - glasses ; ‘but awfully taking!’ And 
Eeginald Hesslegrave found her so. From that 
moment forth, it became his favourite day-dream that 
he had made a large fortune at a single stroke (on the 
turf, of course), and married the owner of the crisp 
black curls. So deep-rooted did this ideal become to 
him, indeed, that he set to work at once to secure the 
large, fortune. And how ? By working hard day and 
night, and saving and investing ? Oh dear me, no ! 
Such bourgeois methods are not for the likes of Mr. 
Eeginald Hesslegrave, who prided himself upon being 
a perfect gentleman. By risking Kathleen’s hard- 
earned money on the Derby favourite, and accepting 
‘ tips ’ as to a dark horse ’ for the Leger ! 


CHAPTEE IX. 

BY THE BLUE ADKIATIC. 

April in Venice, young ladies aver, is ‘ just too lovely 
for anything.’ And Eufus Mortimer utilized one of its 
just too lovely days for his long-deferred project of a 
picnic to the Lido. 

Do you know the Lido ? ’Tis that long natural 
bulwark, ‘ the bank of sand which breaks the flow of 
Adria towards Venice,’ as Shelley calls it. It stretches 
for miles and miles in a narrow belt along the mouth 
of the lagoons ; on one side lies the ocean, and on one 


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the shallow pool of mudbanks and canals. This is 
the only place near Venice, indeed, where a horse can 
find foothold ; and on that account, as well as for the 
sake of the surf-bathing, it is a favourite resort of 
Venetians and visitors in spring and summer. The 
side towards the lagoon rises high and dry, in a sort 
of native breakwater, like the lofty Chesil Beach that 
similarly cuts off the English Channel from the 
shallow expanse of the Fleet in Dorsetshire ; its 
opposite front descends in a gentle slope to the level 
of the Adriatic, and receives on its wrinkled face the 
thunderous billows of that uncertain main, Horace’s 
‘turbulent Hadria.’ Hither, then, Kufus Mortimer 
brought his guests and friends one bright April morn- 
ing, when the treacherous sea was sleeping calmly 
like a child, and no breath of wind from the Dalma- 
tian hills disturbed the tranquil rest of its glassy 
bosom. 

They crossed over partly in Mortimer’s own private 
gondola, partly in a hired harca — a hencoop, as Arnold 
Willoughby irreverently called it — from the steps of 
the Molo. As they passed out of the harbour, the 
view behind them rose even lovelier than usual. That 
is the way to see Venice ; its front-door is the sea ; it 
breaks upon one full face as one looks at it from the 
Lido. We who arrive at it nowadays by the long and 
tedious railway embankment over the shallow lagoon 
hardly realize that we are entering the city of the 
Doges by its back-door. We come first upon the 
slums, the purlieus, the Ghetto. But the visitor who 
approaches the Bride of the Adriatic for the first time 
by sea from Trieste or Alexandria sees it as its makers 
and adorners intended he should see it. As he draws 
nigh shore, the great buildings by the water’s edge 


BY THE BLUE ADRIATIC 


95 


rise one after another before his enchanted eyes. He 
sees Fortuna on her golden ball above the Dogana di 
Mare ; he sees the Doges’ Palace with its arcade and 
its loggia ; he sees the clustered cupolas and spires of 
St. Mark’s ; he sees the quaint volutes and swelling 
domes of Santa Maria della Salute. Then, as he 
nears the Molo, the vast panorama of beauty bursts 
upon him at once in all its detail — the Bridge of Sighs, 
the famed Lion Column, St. Theodore on his crocodile, 
St. Mark on his airy pinnacle, the Piazzetta, the 
Piazza, the Campanile, the Clock Tower. He lands 
by the marble steps, and finds himself face to face 
with the gorgeous pilasters of Sansovino’s library, the 
fa9ade of the great church, the porphyry statues, the 
gold and alabaster, the blaze of mosaics, the lavish 
waste of sculpture. With a whirling head, he walks 
on through it all, amazed, conscious of nothing else 
save a phantasmagoria of glory, and thanking heaven 
in his heart that at last he has seen Venice. 

This was the view upon which the occupants of 
Eufus Mortimer’s gondola looked back with delighted 
eyes that April morning. But this was not all. 
Behind and above it all, the snow-capped chain of the 
Tyrolese Alps and the hills of Cadore rose fairy-like 
in a semicircle. Their pencilled hollows showed 
purple : their peaks gleamed like crystal in the morn- 
ing sun. Cloudless and clear, every glen and crag 
pinked out by the searching rays, they stood silhouetted 
in pure white against the solid blue sky of Italy. In 
front of them, St. Mark’s and the Campanile were 
outlined in dark hues. ’Twas a sight to rejoice a 
painter’s eyes. Arnold Willoughby and Kathleen 
Hesslegrave sat entranced as they looked at it. 

Nothing rouses the emotional side of a man’s 


96 


AT MARKET VALUE 


nature more vividly than to gaze at beautiful things 
with a beautiful woman. Arnold Willoughby sat by 
Kathleen’s side and drank it all in delighted. He 
half made up his mind to ask her that very day 
whether, if he ever could succeed in his profession, 
she would be willing to link her life with a poor 
marine painter’s. 

He didn’t mean to make her Lady Axminster. That 
was far from his mind. He would not have cared for 
those ‘ whose mean ambition aims at palaces and titled 
names,’ as George Meredith has phrased it. But he 
wanted to make her Mrs. Arnold Willoughby. 

As they crossed over to the Lido, he was full of a 
new discovery he had made a few days before. A 
curious incident had happened to him. In hunting 
among a bundle of papers at his lodgings, which his 
landlady had bought to tie up half-kilos of rice and 
macaroni, he had come, it appeared, upon a wonderful 
manuscript. He hardly knew himself at the time how 
important this manuscript was to become to him here- 
after ; but he was full of it, all the same, as a singular 
discovery. 

‘ It’s written in Italian,’ he said to Kathleen; ‘ that’s 
the funny part of it; but still, it seems, it’s by an 
English sailor; and it’s immensely interesting — a 
narrative of his captivity in Spain and his trial by the 
Inquisition, for standing up like a man for Her Grace’s 
claim to the throne of England.’ 

‘ What’s the date of it ?’ Kathleen asked, not know- 
ing or not catching the special Elizabethan tinge of 
that phrase. Her Grace, instead of Her Majesty. 

‘ Oh, Elizabeth, of course,’ Arnold answered lightly. 
' Such a graphic story ! And the queerest part of it 
all is, it’s written in cipher.’ 


BY THE BLUE ADRIATIC 


97 


‘ Then how did you make it out ?’ Kathleen asked 
admiringly. To her mind, it seemed a perfectly 
astonishing feat that any man should be able to 
decipher such a thing for himself by mere puzzling 
over it. 

‘ Why, easily enough,’ Arnold answered with a 
smile ; ‘ for happily I took it for granted, since I found 
it in Italy, the language was Italian ; so I soon spelt it 
out. Those sixteenth-century people always made use 
of the most simple ciphers — almost foolishly simple. 
Any child could read them.’ 

Kathleen looked up at him with profound admira- 
tion. For her own part, she couldn’t imagine how on 
earth it could be done. ‘ How wonderful !’ she ex- 
claimed. ‘ You must show it to me some day. And 
it’s interesting, is it ? I should love to see it.’ 

‘ Yes, it’s interesting,’ Arnold answered. ‘ As inter- 
esting as a novel. A perfect romance. Most vivid 
and amusing. The writer was a man named John 
Collingham of Norfolk, the owner and skipper of an 
English barque; he was taken by the Spaniards off 
Cape Finisterre, and thrown into prison for six 
months at Cadiz. Afterwards he escaped, and made 
his way to Venice, where he wrote this memorial in 
cipher to the Council of Ten, whom he desired to 
employ him ; but what became of him in the end I 
haven’t yet got to. It takes some time to decipher the 
whole of it.’ 

That was all, for the moment. More important 
concerns put the manuscript afterwards for a time out 
of Kathleen’s head ; though in the end she had good 
reason indeed to remember it. However, just then^ 
as soon as they landed, Kufus Mortimer hurried her 
off to admire the view from the top of the Lido ; and 

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he took excellent care she should have no other 
chance that day of private conversation with Arnold 
Willoughby. 

They lunched al fresco on the summit of the great 
bank, looking down on the sea to the right, and the 
long stretch of the shallow lagoon to the left, with the 
distant towers of Venice showing up with all their 
spires in the middle distance, and the jagged range of 
snowy Alps gleaming white in the background. As 
soon as they had finished, Eufus Mortimer managed 
to get Kathleen to himself for a quiet stroll along the 
sea -beach. The sand was hard and firm and strewn 
with seaweed ; here and there a curled sea-horse lay 
tossed up by the tide; and innumerable tiny shells 
glistened bright like pearls on the line of high-water. 

Kathleen felt a little shy with him. She guessed 
what was coming. But she pretended to ignore it, 
and began in her most conventional society tone : 

‘ Have you heard that Canon Valentine and his wife 
are coming out here to Venice next week to visit us ?’ 

Mortimer gazed at her with a comic little look of 
quizzical surprise. He had got away alone with her 
after no small struggle, and he meant to make the 
best of this solitary opportunity. 

‘ Have I heard that Canon Valentine and his wife 
are coming ?’ he asked with a sort of genial satire in 
his voice. ‘ Now, do you think. Miss Hesslegrave, I 
planned this picnic to the Lido to-day, and got off 
with you alone here, for nothing else but to talk about 
that bore. Canon Valentine, and that stick of a wife of 
his ?’ 

‘I — I really don’t know,’ Kathleen faltered out 
demurely. 

Mortimer gazed at her hard. 


BY THE BLUE ADRIATIC 


99 


‘ Yes, you do,’ he answered at last, after a long deep 
pause. ‘ You know it very well. You know you’re 
playing with me. That isn’t what I want, and you 
can see it. Miss Hesslegrave. You can guess what I’ve 
come here for. You can guess why I’ve brought you 
away all alone upon the sands.’ He trembled with 
emotion. It took a good deal to work Eufus Mortimer 
up, but when once he was worked up, his feelings ran 
away with him. He quivered visibly. ‘ Oh, Miss 
Hesslegrave,’ he cried, gazing wildly at her, ‘ you 
must have seen it long since. You can’t have mis- 
taken it. You must have known I loved you ! I’ve 
as good as told you so over and over again, both in 
London and here ; but never till to-day have I 
ventured to ask you. I didn’t dare to ask, because 
I was so afraid you’d say me nay. And now it has 
come to this : I must speak. I must. I can’t keep it 
back within myself any longer.’ 

Every woman is flattered by a man’s asking for her 
love, even when she means to say ‘ No ’ outright to him ; 
and it was something for Kathleen to have made a 
conquest like this of the American millionaire, whom 
every girl in Venice was eager to be introduced to. 
She felt it as such. Yet she drew back, all tremu- 
lous. 

'Please don’t, Mr. Mortimer,’ she pleaded, as the 
American tried hard to seize her vacant hand. ‘ I — 
I wish you wouldn’t. I know you’re very kind ; but 
— I don’t want you to take it.’ 

‘ Why not ?’ Mortimer asked, drawing back a little 
space and gazing at her earnestly. 

‘ Because,’ Kathleen answered, finding it hard 
indeed so to phrase her feelings as not unnecessarily 
to hurt the young man’s, 'I like you very much— 


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as a friend, that is to say — but I could never love 
you.’ 

‘ You thought you could once,’ Mortimer replied, 
with a face of real misery. ‘ I could see you thought 
it once. In Venice here, last year, you almost hesi- 
tated ; and if your mother hadn’t shown herself so 
anxious to push my interest with you, I really believe 
you would have said “ Yes ” then to me. What has made 
the difference now ? You must — you must tell me.’ 

‘ I hardly know myself,’ Kathleen answered truth- 
fully. 

‘ But I must hear it,’ the American answered, 
placing himself in front of her in an eager attitude. 
He had all the chivalrous feeling of his countrymen 
towards women. Eich as he was, he felt, and rightly 
felt, it was a great thing to ask such a girl as Kathleen 
Hesslegrave for the gift of her heart ; and having 
wound himself up to make what for him was that 
fatal plunge, he must know the worst forthwith ; he 
must learn once for all then and there whether or not 
there was any chance left for him. So he stood with 
clasped hands repeating over and over again : ‘ You 
must tell me. Miss Hesslegrave. I have a right to 
know. The feeling I bear towards you gives me a 
claim to know it.’ 

‘ I can’t tell myself,’ Kathleen replied, a little 
falteringly, for his earnestness touched her, as earnest- 
ness always touches women. ‘ I shall always like you 
very much, Mr. Mortimer, but I can never love you.’ 

‘ Do you love somebody else, will you tell me that ?’ 
the young man asked, almost fiercely. 

Kathleen hesitated, and was lost. 

‘ I — I don’t know myself, Mr. Mortimer,’ she 
answ^ered feebly. 


BY THE BLUE ADRIATIC 


lOI 


Mortimer drew a long breath. 

‘ Is it Willoughby ?’ he asked at last, with a sudden 
turn that half frightened her. 

Kathleen began to cry. 

‘ Mr. Mortimer,’ she exclaimed, ‘ you have no right 
to try to extort from me a secret I have never told yet 
to anybody — hardly even to myself. Mr. Willoughby 
is nothing more than a friend and a companion to 
me.’ 

But the American read her meaning through her 
words, for all that. ‘ Willoughby !’ he cried — ‘ Wil- 
loughby ! It’s Willoughby who has supplanted me. 
I was half afraid of this.’ He paused irresolute for a 
moment. Then he went on much lower: ‘I ought 
to hate him for this. Miss Hesslegrave ; but somehow 
I don’t. Perhaps it isn’t in my blood. But I like him 
and admire him. I admire his courage. I admire 
your courage for liking him. The worst of it is, I 
admire you, too, for having the simple honesty to 
prefer him to me — under all the circumstances. I 
know you are doing right ; I can’t help admiring it. 
That penniless man against American millions ! But 
you have left my heart poor. Oh, so poor ! so poor ! 
There was one thing in life upon which I had fixed 
it, and you have given that to Willoughby ; and. 
Miss Hesslegrave, I can’t even quarrel with you for 
giving it ! ’ 

Kathleen leant forward towards him anxiously. 
‘ Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she cried, clasping her hands, 
‘ don’t betray me, Mr. Mortimer ! I have never 
breathed a single word of this to him, nor he to me. 
It was uncanny of you to find it out. I ask you, as a 
woman, keep it — keep it sacred, for my sake, I beg of 
you !’ 


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Mortimer looked at her with the intensest affection 
in his eyes. He spoke the plain truth ; that woman 
was the one object in life on which he had set his 
heart ; and without her, his wealth was as worthless 
dross to him. 

‘ Why, Miss Hesslegrave,’ he answered, ‘ what do 
you think I am made of? Do you think I could 
surprise a woman’s secret like that, and not keep it 
more sacred than anything else on earth ? You must 
have formed indeed a very low opinion of me. I can 
use this knowledge but for one aim and end — to do 
what I can towards making Willoughby’s path in life 
a little smoother and easier for him. I wished to do 
so for his own sake before ; I shall wish it a thousand 
times more for your sake in future.’ 

Tears stood in his eyes. He spoke earnestly, 
seriously. He was one of those rare men who rise far 
above jealousy. Kathleen was touched by his attitude 
— what woman would not have been ? For a moment 
she half regretted she could not answer him ‘ Yes.’ He 
was so genuinely in love, so deeply and honestly 
grieved at her inability to love him. Of her own 
accord she took his hand. 

‘ Mr. Mortimer,’ she said truthfully, ‘ I like you 
better this minute than I have ever liked you. You 
have spoken like a friend ; you have spoken like a 
gentleman. Few men at such a moment could have 
spoken as you have done. Believe me, indeed, I am 
deeply grateful for it.’ 

‘ Thank you,’ Mortimer answered, brushing his tears 
away shamefacedly. Americans are more frank about 
such matters than we self-restrained Britons. ‘ But, oh. 
Miss Hesslegrave, after all, what poor comfort that is to 
a man who asks your love, who loves you devotedly !’ 


BY THE BLUE ADRIATIC 


103 


They turned with one accord, and wandered back 
along the sands in silence towards the rest of the 
party. So far as Eufus Mortimer was concerned, that 
picnic had been a dead failure. ’Twas with an effort 
that he managed to keep up conversation the rest of 
the afternoon with the mammas of the expedition. 
His heart had received a very heavy blow, and he 
hardly sought to conceal it from Kathleen’s observant 
vision. 

Sad that in this world what is one man’s loss is 
another man’s gain. Arnold Willoughby, seeing 
those two come back silent from their stroll along 
the sands together, looked hard in Kathleen’s face, and 
then in Mortimer’s — and read the whole history. He 
felt a little thrill of pleasure course through his spine 
like a chill. ' Then he has asked her,’ Arnold thought ; 
‘and she — she has refused him. Dear girl, she has 
refused him ! I can trust her, after all. She prefers 
the penniless sailor to the richest man this day in 
Venice !’ 

It is always so. We each of us see things from our 
own point of view. Any other man would have taken 
it in the same way as Arnold Willoughby. But 
Kathleen went home that evening very heavy at heart 
for her American lover. He was so kind and true, so 
manly and generous, she felt half grieved in her heart 
she couldn’t have said ‘ Yes ’ to him. 


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CHAPTEE X. 

VISITORS IN VENICE. 

Canon Valentine stared about him in the midst of the 
Piazza with a stony British stare of complete disappro- 
bation. He rejected it in toto. 

‘ So this is modern Venice !’ he exclaimed, with the 
air of a man who revisits some painful scene he has 
known in its better days. ‘ This is what emancipated 
Italy has made of it ! Dear me, Mrs. Hesslegrave, 
how altered it is, to be sure, since the good old times 
of the Austrian occupation !’ 

‘Ah, yes,’ Kathleen interposed, not entering into 
his humour. ‘ No doubt you see great changes. 
Canon. You haven’t been here before since United 
Italy. How much lovelier it must look to you, now 
it’s really and truly Italian!’ 

The Canon gazed at her, full face, in the blankest 
astonishment. 

‘ Quite the contrary,’ he said curtly. ‘ I see very 
great changes — but they’re all for the worse. These 
pigeons, for example ; they were always a nuisance ; 
flying about under one’s feet, and getting in one’s way 
at every twist and turn — but there are ten times as 
many of them now as there ever used to be.’ 

‘Why, I love the pigeons,’ Kathleen cried, all 
amazed. ‘ They’re so tame and familiar. In England, 
the boys would throw stones at them and frighten 
them ; but here, under the shadow of St. Mark’s, they 
seem to feel as if they belonged to the place, and as if 
man was a friend of theirs. Besides, they’re so cha- 
racteristic ; and they’re historically interesting too. 


VISITORS IN VENICE 


105 


don’t you know ! They’re said to be the descendants 
of the identical birds that brought Doge Dandolo good 
news from friends on shore, which enabled him to 
capture Crete, and so lay the foundations of the Vene- 
tian Empire. I just love the pigeons.’ 

‘I dare say you do,’ the Canon answered testily; 
‘ but that’s no reason why they should be allowed to 
stroll about under people’s heels as they walk across 
the Piazza. In the good old Austrian days, I’m sure, 
that was never permitted. Intolerable, simply ! — And 
then the band ! What very inferior music ! — When 
the Austrians were here, you remember, Amelia, we 
had a capital bandmaster ; and everybody used to 
come out to listen to his German tunes in the evening. 
The Square was always gay with bright uniforms 
then — such beautiful coats ! Austrian hussar coats, 
deep braided on either side, and flung carelessly open. 
The officers looked splendid by the tables at Florio’s. 
Venice was Venice in those days, I can tell you, 
before all this nonsense cropped up about United 
Italy.’ 

‘But what could be lovelier,’ Kathleen exclaimed, 
half shocked at such treason, ‘ than the Italian officers 
in their picturesque blue cloaks — the Bersaglieri espe- 
cially? I declare, I always fall quite in love with 
them.’ 

‘Very likely,’ the Canon answered. He was never 
surprised, for his part, at any aberration of feeling on 
the part of young girls, since this modern education 
craze. It had unsexed women for him. ‘But the 
place is spoiled, for all that. You should have seen it 
at its best, before it was vulgarized. Even St. Mark’s 
is gilded and furbished up now out of all recognition. 
It’s not fit to look at. — Amelia, my dear, don’t you 


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agree with me, the place was far more picturesque 
when the Austrians had it ?’ 

‘ Oh, very much more picturesque !’ Mrs. Valentine 
echoed dutifully. She was a meek-looking old lady, 
in a long black cloak, absolutely overborne by fifty 
years of the Canon’s individuality, and she would have 
answered the exact opposite in perfect good faith if 
only she perceived the Canon expected it. Irreverent 
young men in their cathedral town were wont to speak 
of her familiarly as ‘ the prophet’s donkey.’ 

The Canon examined critically the fa9ade of St. 
Mark’s — that glorious composite fa9ade, of no par- 
ticular time or style or fashion, which Kathleen 
admired so fervently, with its fantastic mixture of all 
elements alike — Byzantine, Oriental, Komanesque, 
Gothic, Kenaissance. ‘ Very mixed !’ the Canon mur- 
mured, holding his head on one side — ‘ very mixed 
indeed. I can’t say I care for it. It’s so low and 
squat. And how the mosaics disfigure it !’ 

In answer to criticism like that, poor Kathleen had 
nothing to say ; so she wisely held her tongue. She 
knew when to be silent. The Canon strolled on, with 
Mrs. Hesslegrave by his side, past Leopardo’s bronze 
sockets, which still hold aloft the great flagstaffs of the 
Eepublic in front of the marvellous church ; past the 
corner of St. Mark’s where stand the square pillars 
from St. Saba at Ptolemais ; past the main gate of the 
palace, with its sculptured design of Doge Francesco 
Foscari, in cap and robes, kneeling in submission 
before the lion of St. Mark ; past the noble arcades 
and loggias of the Piazzetta ; past the two huge 
columns in the seaward square, and down by slow 
degrees to the steps of the Molo. Kathleen listened in 
wonder, half incredulous, to his criticisms as he passed. 


VISITORS IN VENICE 


107 


She was so little accustomed herself to anything save 
breathless admiration and delight at the glories of 
Venice, that this strange attitude of cold blame seemed 
to her well-nigh unnatural. To think that any man 
should stand unawed before the very faces of St. 
Mark and St. Theodore ! 

At the Molo they called a gondola, and glided in it 
slowly down the Grand Canal. The Canon thought it 
had fallen off since the days of the Austrians. Half 
the palaces were worse kept, and the other half were 
scraped and cleaned and redecorated throughout in 
the most ridiculous Wardour Street fashion. He 
couldn’t bear to see Venice Blundell-Mapled. It was 
all quite depressing. But what astonished Kathleen 
the most was the singular fact that, after passing the 
bend in the canal by the Palazzo Contarini, the Canon 
seemed almost entirely to forget in what city they 
were, though this was his first day for thirty years in 
the sea-born city, and, looking no longer at churches 
or palaces, began to gossip about the people he had 
left behind him in London. His world went with 
him. They might have been in Bond Street or Eotten 
Eow, for any notice he took of the Eialto or the 
Ca d’Oro. He glided past the Fondaco without even 
a single word : he never deigned to give a glance to 
the School of St. Mark or the tower of San Zanipolo. 
To Kathleen’s artistic soul it was all a strange puzzle. 
She couldn’t understand it. Had the man no eyes in 
his head that he could pass those glorious arcades, 
those exquisite balconies, without even looking up at 
them ? 

‘ And you were going to tell us something about this 
Axminster business,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave remarked after 
a pause, as they reached the front of the Arsenal on 


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their circuitous peregrination, which Kathleen had 
arranged so as to take in at one round all the principal 
buildings. ‘ Poor dear Lady Axminster ! Has any- 
thing been done yet about this affair of the peerage ?’ 

‘ Oh dear yes,’ the Canon replied, brightening up 
at the suggestion. ‘ I was coming to that. I intended 
to tell you all about it. Haven’t you read it in the 
papers ? We’re in hopes at last we’re really going to 
get a definite settlement.’ 

‘ That’s well,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave echoed with a 
sympathetic smirk. ‘What’s being done about it 
now? We haven’t seen a paper in this benighted 
place for weeks and weeks, don’t you know — except, of 
course, Galignam, It’s really quite dreadful how one 
falls behind the times about all the most important 
and interesting things that are going on in England !’ 

The Canon looked big. This appeal flattered him. 
He liked to feel he came primed with news about the 
best people. ‘ Well, we’ve taken the thing to the 
House of Lords,’ he said, with as much delight as if 
he were himself the appellant. ‘ Poor Algy has 
claimed the peerage on the ground that his cousin 
Bertie is dead, as I told you. We’ve reduced success 
to a practical certainty. The Lords will adjudicate 
on his claim in a week or two ; but it’s a foregone con- 
clusion. I’m very glad, I must say, for Algy’s sake, 
and for his wife’s too. She’s a nice little thing, Mrs. 
Algy Eedburn !’ 

‘ My brother knows her slightly,’ Kathleen said, 
with a tolerant smile, ‘ and seems to think a great 
deal of her.’ 

‘ Oh yes ; she’s a charming woman,’ Mrs. Hessle- 
grave interposed — ‘ a most charming woman.’ (Mrs. 
Hesslegrave thought all peers and peeresses, actual or 


VISITORS IN VENICE 


109 


prospective, particularly charming — even more charm- 
ing, indeed, than the rest of the people in the best 
society.) 

The Canon took no notice, however, of these mter- 
jected remarks. He severely ignored them. To say 
the truth, he regarded the entire Axminster connection 
as his own private property, from a social point of 
view, and rather resented than otherwise the im- 
pertinent suggestion that anyone else in the world 
could have anything to do with them. ‘ Yes, we’ve 
reduced it to a practical certainty,’ he went on, lean- 
ing back in his place in the gondola and staring hard 
at the water. ‘ The crux of the case consisted, of 
course, in the difficulty of proving that the man 
Douglas Overton, who shipped from the port of 
London in the Saucy Sally — that was the name of the 
vessel, if I recollect aright — for Melbourne, Australia, 
was really the same man as Albert Ogilvie Eedburn, 
seventh Lord Axminster. And it was precious hard 
to prove satisfactorily, I can tell you ; but Maria has 
proved it — proved it up to the hilfc. Maria’s a very 
clever woman of the world, and she knows how to 
work these things like a private detective. Her 
lawyer said to her in my hearing : “ Nobody but you. 
Lady Axminster, would ever have succeeded in pulling 
it through ; but thanks to your ability and energy and 
acumen, not even the House of Lords can have the 
shadow of a doubt about it.” And the House of 
Lords, you may take your affidavit, will doubt any- 
thing any mortal on earth could doubt, to keep a 
claimant out of a peerage, if only they can manage 
it.’ 

‘ But you think it’s quite safe now ?’ Mrs. Hessle- 
grave asked with interest. Anything that referred to 


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a peer of the realm had for her mind a perfectly en- 
thralling attraction. 

‘ Oh dear yes, quite safe. Not a doubt in the 
world of it. You see, we’ve established, in the first 
place, the fact that the man Douglas Overton really 
was Bertie Eedburn, which is always something. And 
we’ve established in the second place the complemen- 
tary fact that the Saucy Sally, from London for 
Melbourne, went ashore on some wretched island 
nobody ever heard of in the Indian Ocean, and that 
all souls on board perished — including, of course, the 
man Douglas Overton, who is Bertie Eedburn, who is 
the late Lord Axminster. A child can see it — let alone 
the Privilege Committee.’ 

‘I’m glad it’s going to be settled,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave 
remarked with unction. ‘ It’s such a dreadful thing 
for poor Mr. Algernon Eedburn to be kept so long, 
through no fault of his own, out of the money and 
title.’ 

‘ Oh, dreadful,’ the Canon assented — ‘ dreadful, 
dreadful, dreadful ! But there, poor Bertie never had 
any conscience ! It was quite painful the distressing 
views he used to hold on such subjects, for a man in 
his position. I always set it down to the gipsy blood in 
him. I’ve heard him say more than once he longed to 
be doing something that he called useful for the mass 
of the community. Long before he gave way to these 
abnormal longings, and neglected his natural duties, 
and ran away to sea, he’s told me time and again he felt 
a sailor’s life was a life of undoubted value and useful- 
ness to the country. A sailor was employed in carry- 
ing commodities from one place where they were 
produced to another place where they were wanted or 
eaten or something — consumed, I think he called it — 


VISITORS IN VENICE 


III 


and nobody could deny that was a good and useful 
thing for the people that consumed them. “ Very 
well, Bertie,” said I — half in a joke, don’t you know 
— then why shouldn’t you go yourself, and carry coals 
to Newcastle, or whatever else may be the crying want 
in that line at the moment ?” — never dreaming, of 
course, the poor silly boy would go and follow my 
advice, as he did to the letter. But there ! these 
things come out all right in the long-run. “ There’s 
a divinity that shapes our ends,” as Tennyson or 
somebody says — ah, thank you, was it Shakespeare ? 
— “ rough-hew them how we may;” and that’s been 
the case, I say, with this Axminster peerage business. 
For the upshot of it all is, that poor Bertie’s dead 
and gone, sooner than one could reasonably have ex- 
pected, and Algy’s come into the property and title 
before his time ; which is a very desirable thing to 
have happened : for Bertie might have married a 
woman after his own heart, no doubt — a sailor’s Poll 
for choice — and if he had, why, one trembles to think 
what the children might have been like — a perfect 
disgrace to their ancestry !’ 

Mrs. Hesslegrave smiled an acquiescent smile. 
But as for Kathleen, a flash of light broke suddenly 
upon her. ‘A sailor is employed in carrying com- 
modities from the place where they are produced to 
the place where they are needed ; and that nobody 
can deny to be on the whole a useful and a valuable 
function for society!’ Surely this line of reasoning, 
were it right or wrong, sounded strangely familiar to 
her ! And then, as she thought it over, it broke 
upon her like a revelation that she had heard similar 
words before now — from Arnold Willoughby ! From 
Arnold Willoughby ! From the courteous artist- 


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sailor. A strange misgiving seized upon her. If Lord 
Axminster could disguise himself as Douglas Overton, 
why not also as Arnold Willoughby ? She thought at 
once of her sailor friend’s extraordinary knowledge of 
art and literature for a common sailor ; of his chival- 
rous manners ; of his demeanour, which so belied his 
dress and his pretensions. Turning sharply to Canon 
Valentine she ventured to put all at once the dubious 
question : 

‘Did Lord Axminster paint? Had he any know- 
ledge of art, I mean ?’ 

‘ Oh dear me, yes !’ the Canon answered without a 
second’s hesitation. ‘He studied in Paris under a 
first-rate painter, a fellow with one of their long- 
winded double-barrelled names : Bastien-somebody it 
was ; I never can get the hang of them.’ 

Kathleen asked no more. Her heart was strangely 
troubled. For her sailor had spoken more than once 
incidentally of Bastien-Lepage’s studio. Loyalty to 
Arnold Willoughby made her hold her peace, and 
refrain from blurting out the doubt that rose within 
her. If he was really Lord Axminster, why, it would 
be wrong of her even to attempt to surprise his secret 
— still more to betray it. The words from which she 
suspected she discovered his identity had been spoken 
in confidence, in the most private conversation. 
Kathleen couldn’t help framing to herself offhand a 
pretty little romance, based on the familiar Lord-of- 
Burleigh model — ‘ He was but a landscape painter. 
And a village maiden she !’ A romance of how this 
young man had tried to win her love as a common 
sailor (and what was more, succeeded in it), and how 
he meant in the end to astonish the world by telling 
her he was an Earl, and carrying her off unawares to 


VISITORS IN VENICE 


1^3 

his home in Devonshire, to share the fancied glories 
of Membury Castle. 

‘ And while now she wonders blindly, 

Nor the meaning can divine. 

Proudly turns he round and kindly, 

“ All of this is mine and thine.” ’ 

’Twas a romantic little day-dream. To say the 
truth, Kathleen regarded it only as such. For as yet 
she had no positive reason to believe that Arnold 
Willoughby even loved her. She had but guessed 
it instinctively, with a woman’s intuition. And as to 
his real position in life she knew absolutely nothing. 
The singular coincidence in thought and phrase 
between the things he had said to her and the things 
the Canon repeated as Lord Axminster’s sayings was 
indeed close enough ; but it might be accidental. No 
human being is ever really unique ; every thought 
and feeling w^e can have, somebody else has had in 
almost the same form, we may be sure, before us. 
And perhaps they had both taken word and thought 
alike from some previous thinker, as' often happens 
with all of us. For aught she knew to the contrary, 
it might be some commonplace of Emerson’s or 
Thoreau’s. At any rate, Kathleen attached no serious 
importance to this flash of identiflcation, at least after 
the first moment. Still, she went on indulging the 
day-dream, as one often will, for many minutes 
together, out of mere fanciful delight in it. It gave 
her some slight relief from the cling, cling, cling of the 
Canon’s perpetual chatter about the sayings and 
doings of his great folk in London. While he went 
droning on to Mrs. Hesslegrave about Lady This and 
Lady That, their virtues and their delinquencies, 

8 


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114 

Kathleen leaned back in her seat in the broad 
Italian sunshine, and closed her ears to it. all mentally, 
while she enlarged to herself upon this Axminster day- 
dream, and saw herself as Arnold Willoughby’s bride 
pacing entranced through the full leaf of June at 
Membury Castle. 

At last she shut her eyes for a moment, as they 
were nearing a bridge at one familiar corner, where a 
Eomanesque staircase of exquisite workmanship ran 
spirally up outside a round tower in the background. 
It helped her day-dream somewhat to shut her eyes : 
she could see the great oaks of an English park : she 
could see the fallow deer on dappled spots of shade 
under the spreading chestnuts. A sharp cry from the 
Canon made her open them again suddenly. Glancing 
up in alarm, she looked in the direction where her 
visitor’s eyes were fixed, and saw, leaning on the 
parapet of the high-pitched bridge that spanned their 
canal close by — who else but Arnold Willoughby ! 

The Canon’s last words, unheeded as he spoke them, 
now rang clear in her ears — ‘ He’s dead ; that’s certain. 
We’ve got full particulars. All hands were lost — and 
he must have been lost among them.’ 

But this moment, at sight of Arnold Willoughby’s 
bent head, with one finger twisted carelessly in the 
lock behind his ear, the Canon sat staring wildly in 
front of him with wide-open eyes. 

‘ Why, look there !’ he cried, taken aback, in a 
voice of something very little short of horror. ‘ Look 
there ! Who’s that ! The man on the bridge just in 
front of us ?’ 

‘What’s the matter with him!’ Mrs. Hesslegrave 
exclaimed, following blankly the direction of the 
Canon’s eyes. She had always been sure^there must 


VISITORS IN VENICE 


115 

be something seriously wrong about that dreadful 
Willoughby man ; and now they were discovering it. 
Could the Canon have recognised him as an escaped 
convict, or told him at a glance as the Banbury 
murderer ? 

But Canon Valentine gazed harder and more 
steadily than any of them. He seized Kathleen’s arm 
with a convulsive start. 

‘ Yes, it’s him !’ he said excitedly, in a tone of blank 
alarm ; ‘ a good deal altered, of course, and quite dis- 
guised beyond anybody else’s recognition. But it’s 
him, sure enough ! I should know him in a thou- 
sand !’ 

‘ It’s who V Mrs. Hesslegrave faltered out, hardly 
daring to ask. 

The Canon gasped for breath. He could only just 
speak. 

‘Why, Bertie!’ he answered low, leaning forward 
to whisper it. ‘ Don’t you understand ? Bertie 
Kedburn ! The man that’s dead 1 The late Lord 
Axminster I’ 


CHAPTEK XI. 

MBS. HESSLEGRAVE MISAPPREHENDS. 

The words were scarcely out of the Canon’s mouth 
when straightway he repented of them. If this was 
really Bertie, he ought to have held his peace. The 
man was skulking in that case — quite evidently skulk- 
ing ; he wanted to disappear: he didn’t wish to be 
recognised. It was no business of the Canon’s, then, 
to drag a fellow-creature against his will out of volun- 
tary retirement, and so spoil Algy’s chance of obtain- 


ii6 AT MARKET VALUE 

ing the peerage. On the other hand, if it wasn’t Bertie, 
the Canon should, of course, have been the last man 
on earth to call attention to a likeness — really, now 
he came to think of it, a very remote likeness — to the 
late Earl, and so give rise to a rumour which might 
prove prejudicial in the end to Algy’s position. He 
had cried out in the heat of the moment, in the first 
flush of surprise ; he began to hedge at once, as soon 
as ever he perceived, on cooler reflection, the possible 
consequences of his instinctive action. This is a very 
small planet. Sooner or later, we all collide upon its 
surface. 

As for Kathleen, her first thought was one of loyalty 
to Arnold. If he was Lord Axminster — and of this 
she had now very little doubt left ; the double coinci- 
dence settled it — he was trying to hide himself : he 
didn’t wish to be recognised. That was enough for 
her. He desired that his personality as Arnold 
Willoughby should not be mixed up with’his person- 
ality as Bertie Kedburn. Therefore, it was her clear 
duty not to betray him in any way. She glanced 
nervously at her mother. Mrs. Hesslegrave had half 
risen from her seat, overjoyed to hear that this was 
really an English earl, whose high birth and intrinsic 
nobility they had discovered for themselves under the 
guise of a common sailor, and was just about to call 
out : ‘ Mr. Willoughby ! Mr. Willoughby !’ But Kath- 
leen darted upon her suddenly such a warning glance 
that she withered up forthwith, and held her peace 
devoutly. She didn’t know why she was to keep 
silent; but she could see, from Kathleen’s half-im- 
perious, half-imploring look, there was some good 
reason for it ; and Mrs. Hesslegrave was one of those 
rare stupid people who recognise the fact of their own 


MRS. HESSLEGRAVE MISAPPREHENDS 117 

stupidity, and allow themselves to be blindly guided 
in emergencies by others. So she held her peace, 
merely remarking, as she sat down again : 

‘ So you think that’s Lord Axminster ! Dressed up 
like that ! Well, really now, how interesting !’ 

Arnold Willoughby’s face, meanwhile, was all the 
time turned half in the opposite direction. He did 
not see the gondola, nor Kathleen, nor the Canon. 
He was engaged, in fact, in watching and mentally 
photographing for artistic purposes the graceful move- 
ments of a passing barge as she swung slowly through 
the bridge over whose balustrade he was hanging. 
While Mrs. Hesslegrave spoke, he turned and went 
on without observing them. Next instant, he was 
lost in the crowd that surged and swayed through 
the narrow calle. The danger was averted. He had 
never so much as observed the Canon. 

As for that astute old gentleman, now he had 
recovered his breath, he saw his mistake at once, and 
faced it boldly. When Mrs. Hesslegrave said, ‘ So 
you think that’s Lord Axminster?’ he answered im- 
mediately, with perfect self-control : 

‘ No, I don’t. I was mistaken. It was — a passing 
fancy. For a second I imagined — merely imagined, 
don’t you know — the man looked something like him. 
I suppose it was the sailor get-up which just at first 
deceived me. Poor Axminster used to dress like a 
sailor when he yachted. Amelia, my dear, that was 
not Bertie, was it? You could see the man dis- 
tinctly.’ 

‘ Oh dear no, Fred,’ Mrs. Valentine echoed in a 
voice of profound conviction ; ‘ not the least bit like 
him !’ 

The Canon frowned slightly. Amelia had bettered 


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her instructions unbidden. He was the least bit like 
him, else why should the Canon have mistaken him 
at first sight for his kinsman Bertie ? But not very 
like. 

‘A mere superficial resemblance,’ he went on, hedg- 
ing violently. ‘ Just at the first glance, to be sure — 
having my head full of the subject, and seeing the 
sailor dress — I mistook him for Bertie. But when I 
came to look again, the fellow was altogether different. 
Same build, perhaps, but features gone shorter and 
thicker and flatter. A man may dye his hair, and 
cut his beard, and so forth; but, hang it all, Mrs. 
Hesslegrave ! he can’t go and get rid of his own born 
features.’ 

He talked all the rest of the way home of nothing 
on earth except singular resemblances and mistaken 
identities. There were Perkin Warbeck, and Edmund 
Wyld, and the Tichborne Claimant. There was Sidney 
Carton in the ‘ Tale of Two Cities.’ And he came back 
always to the fundamental point, that the features of 
a face at least — the features must ahvays remain ; you 
might dress, and you might paint, but there was no 
possibility of getting over the features. He over- 
elaborated this issue, in fact. Kathleen could see 
from every phrase he was sure in his own heart he 
had seen Bertie Eedburn, and was trying to argue 
himself, and still more his hearers, out of that positive 
conviction. Even Mrs. Hesslegrave saw it, indeed, 
and murmured aside to Kathleen, as they stood on 
the steps of the Molo : 

‘ That is Lord Axminster, Kitty, and the dear Canon 
knew it ; but, for Algernon Eedburn’s sake, he didn’t 
like to acknowledge it.’ 

Kathleen gazed at her seriously. 


MRS. HESSLEGRAVE MISAPPREHENDS 119 

‘Mother, mother,’ she cried, in a low voice, ‘for 
heaven’s sake, don’t say so! Don’t say anything 
about it. You won’t understand yet; but when we 
get home. I’ll tell you. Please say nothing more now. 
If you do, you may upset everything !’ 

A vague idea crossed Mrs. Hesslegrave’s mind at 
that moment, that Kathleen might perhaps have known 
this all along, and that that might account for her 
being so much taken up with this dreadful sailor-man 
— who wasn’t really a dreadful sailor-man at all, as it 
turned out, but the real Lord Axminster 1 If so, how 
delightful ! However, she waited for more light on 
these matters in Kathleen’s own good time, only 
murmuring, meanwhile, half under her breath, to her 
daughter : 

‘ Well, whoever he is, he’s a charming fellow. You 
must admit, yourself, I’ve thought all along he’s a 
charming fellow.’ 

By this time the Canon had settled with the gondo- 
lier — after a resolute attempt at resistance to the 
man’s extortionate endeavour to exact his proper fare 
by municipal tariff — and was ready to stroll up to the 
Hesslegraves’ apartments. For it was a principal 
clause in the Canon’s private creed that every foreigner 
is always engaged in a conspiracy to defraud every 
British subject on whom he can lay his hands ; and 
that the way to make your road easy across the 
Continent is to fight every item of every account, all 
along the line, the moment it is presented. The 
extortionate gondolier had conquered, however, by 
producing a printed tariff which fixed his hire at the 
modest rate of a franc an hour ; so the Canon, paying 
it out without a sou of pourhoire, strode on towards 
the lodgings, disconsolate and distracted. He knew 


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in his heart of hearts that was really Axminster; 
much altered, no doubt, by deliberate disguise ; dis- 
torted beyond belief, but still undeniably Axminster ; 
and he firmly resolved never to mention his conclusion 
for worlds to anyone — not even to Amelia. A man 
has no right to appear and disappear and then 
suddenly crop up again by fits and starts in this 
uncanny manner — to play bo-peep, as it were, with 
the House of Lords, the most dignified, exalted, and 
supreme court in the United Kingdom. Once dead, 
always dead, was a rule that ought to be applied to 
these Tichbornian revivalists. If you choose to go out 
like a candle of your own free will, why, the world 
should sternly decline to recognise you when you 
want to come to life again at inconvenient moments. 
There should be a Bill brought in to declare Bertie 
Kedburn was really dead ; and then dead he should 
remain, by Act of Parliament ! 

But as soon as they were inside the house, and 
Kathleen had gone up with her mother and Mrs. 
Valentine into her pretty little bedroom to take off 
her bonnet, the Canon’s own wife gave vent explosively 
to a fearful and wholly unexpected disclosure. ‘ You 
know, my dear,’ she said confidentially, ‘that ivas 
Lord Axminster. I feel quite sure of it. Only, of 
course, I wouldn’t say so, on dear Fred’s account. 
You know dear Fred can’t bear to be contradicted.’ 

Once more Kathleen darted a warning look at her 
mother; and once more Mrs. Hesslegrave accepted 
the hint blindly. ‘But he was so different, the 
Canon thought,’ she remarked, just to keep up the 
conversation, wondering dimly all the while what this 
mystification could mean — too deep, in fact, for a 
quiet, respectable old lady’s fathoming. 


MRS. HESSLEGRAVE MISAPPREHENDS 121 


‘ Oh, you can’t deceive me /’ Mrs. Valentine 
answered with warmth. ‘ I’m sure it was Lord 
Axminster. And I’ll tell you how I know : his 
features were really changed, exactly as Fred said: 
he must have had something done to them. They 
say you can get your face moulded like putty, if you 
choose to bear it, nowadays. But he had always a 
nervous trick of pulling one back lock of his hair, as 
he stood still and thought — like this, don’t you know ! 
a sort of back-handed twirl : and the moment I saw 
him, I remembered it instantly. He might walk down 
Bond Street any morning, and meet every friend he 
ever knew in the world, and not one in a thousand 
would ever suspect it was he ; but Fred and I, we 
would know, because we saw such a lot of him as a 
child, and were accustomed to reprove him for this 
same awkward trick of his.’ 

And, as a matter of fact, the moment Mrs. Valentine 
mentioned it, Kathleen recollected perfectly that she 
had often observed Arnold Willoughby stand in just 
the way she mimicked, pulling a particular lock at the 
back of his hair, whenever he was observant of a 
person’s face, or attentive to any element in a picture 
or landscape. 

The moment she could get alone with her mother 
upstairs, she began to speak to her seriously. 

‘ Mother,’ she said in her most coaxing tone, ‘you 
ivere so good to take my hints. I didn’t want Canon 
Valentine to know who Mr. Willoughby was — I mean, 
what name he calls himself — or that you and I knew 
him ; for I’m sure the Canon was right : Mr. Wil- 
loughby’s Lord Axminster.’ 

Mrs. Hesslegrave made no immediate reply except 
to step forward with the utmost gentleness and press 


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a motherly kiss upon her daughter’s forehead. ‘ Oh, 
Kitty,’ she cried, gazing fondly at her, ‘ how awfully 
clever of you ! My darling, I’m so glad ! And I’ve 
been seeing all along how much attention he was 
paying you.’ 

Kathleen flushed up to her eyes again. It was a 
way she had when deeply moved. And she knew her 
mother was very much pleased with her indeed ; for 
only when very much pleased did Mrs. Hesslegrave 
ever address her by her pet name of Kitty. ‘But 
that’s not all, mother,’ she went on eagerly. ‘ I want 
you to promise me, oh, ever so faithfully, you won’t 
tell anybody who he is, or anything else about him. 
He wouldn’t like it, if you did. Promise me, dearest, 
promise me !’ 

Mrs. Hesslegrave drew back for a second, lost in 
mazes of thought. She couldn’t quite understand 
this queer Axminster mystery. Then, being a 
romantic old lady, as many old ladies are, she wove 
for herself on the spot a little private romance of how 
it had all happened. Lord Axminster, it appeared, 
distrusting all womankind, after his bitter experience 
with Lady Sark, had come abroad in disguise as a 
common sailor, in order to look out for some girl he 
could really love — some girl who could really love 
him, as a man wishes to be loved, for himself, not for 
his estate, his rank or his title. But Kathleen, like 'a 
clever girl that she was, had discovered by intuition 
his real position in life under those humble surround- 
ings, and had fallen in love with him, and made him 
fall in love with her. Mrs. Hesslegrave could under- 
stand now what she had never understood before — 
how a well-conducted girl like her Kitty could have 
permitted herself to form a romantic attachment for a 


MRS. HESSLEGRAVE MISAPPREHENDS 123 


man apparently so very far beneath her. It was just 
like Kitty to have unmasked the real Earl ; in her joy 
and pride — to think her own daughter should have 
captured a peer of the realm under such adverse con- 
ditions by sheer dint of insight — Mrs. Hesslegrave 
once more bent tenderly forward, and kissed the 
wondering Kathleen a second time on her forehead. 

‘ I’ll promise whatever you like, dear,’ she said in a 
very pleased tone, for this was a great occasion, ‘ Oh, 
Kitty, I^m so delighted ! And indeed, dear, I’m sorry 
I ever seemed to throw any obstacles in Mr. Willough- 
by’s way — I mean, in Lord Axminster’s. But there ! 
you’ll forgive me : I didn’t understand the circum- 
stances as you did. And though I didn’t quite approve 
of your seeing so much as you did of him — under 
misapprehension, of course, as to his real place in 
society — you must remember yourself I always allowed 
that, viewed as a man alone, he was a most charming 
person.’ 

Kathleen didn’t exactly understand what her mother 
was driving at ; these words were too deep for her : 
but for the moment she didn’t think it necessary to 
inquire as to their hidden meaning : she was so afraid 
her mother might by some imprudence betray Arnold 
Willoughby’s secret. And no matter why he wished 
it kept, she felt for her own part ’twas a point of 
honour for them both to insist upon keeping it. So 
she said very hurriedly : 

‘Whatever you do, dear mother, don’t let Canon 
Valentine know Mr. Willoughby’s a friend of ours. 
Don’t say a word about him, in fact. Let the Canon 
suppose the man he saw on the bridge is a perfect 
stranger to all of us. I must manage to prevent 
Mr. Willoughby from visiting the house for the present. 


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somehow. If Canon Valentine were to find out who 
he really was, it would spoil all — and then Mr. Wil- 
loughby would be so dreadfully disappointed.’ 

Mrs. Hesslegrave caught instinctively at that one 
phrase, ‘ spoil all,’ which confirmed her at once in her 
most romantic preconceptions. Then it was just as 
she expected : the Earl and Kitty had arrived at an 
understanding. There was a mystery in the case, of 
course ; but Kitty would clear it all up ; and she 
should live yet to see her only daughter a countess. 

‘ My darling,’ the proud mother said, looking at her 
with affection — for it is something to have a daughter 
who can catch earls in disguise — ‘ tell me all about it ! 
When did Lord Axminster ask you ?’ 

‘ He has never asked me, mother,’ Kathleen an- 
swered with a very deep blush. Then she paused for 
a moment. Her heart rose into her mouth. The 
avowal seemed so natural at a crisis like that. ‘ But 
I love him,’ she went on, clasping her hands ; ‘ and 
I’m sure he loves me. Oh, mother, don’t say any- 
thing that would lead him to suppose you’ve heard a 
word of all this. If you do, all will be lost ! I know 
he wouldn’t care for any of us to know he was really 
Lord Axminster.’ 

She trembled for her unavowed lover, now the truth 
was upon her. 

‘ My dear,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave answered, her admira- 
tion for Kathleen’s cleverness and power of self-restraint 
growing deeper each minute, ‘ you may set your mind 
at rest : you may rely upon my prudence. I grasp 
the situation. I couldn’t have believed it, Kitty ; but 
I’m very, very glad of it. What a wonderful girl you 
are ! I declare you really almost take my breath 
away !’ 


MRS. HESSLEGRAVE MISAPPREHENDS 125 


And, indeed, Mrs. Hesslegrave felt it was most meri- 
torious in Kathleen to have discovered the young 
man’s rank so early — as of course she must have done 
— and to have succeeded in keeping her own counsel 
so well that even her mother never for a moment 
suspected the real rank of her lover ; for that a lover 
he was, Mrs. Hesslegrave took for granted at once, 
now she knew the dreadful sailor-man was really an 
earl. She would hardly have given her Kathleen 
credit before for so much gumption. 

As for Kathleen, she was so fully bent upon pre- 
serving Arnold Willoughby’s secret, that she never 
even noticed her mother’s misapprehension. Her one 
desire now was to keep the matter entirely from Canon 
Valentine, and, if possible, to prevent their accident- 
ally meeting. And that, she foresaw, would be no 
easy task ; for of late, in spite of Mrs. Hesslegrave’ s 
marked coldness, Arnold had frequently called round 
on one errand or another with sketches or books at 
the lodgings by the Piazza. 

Just as she was wondering how best to avert the 
misfortune of an unexpected encounter, however, Mrs. 
Hesslegrave observed with her blandest smile : 

‘ We haven’t seen much of Mr. Willoughby lately. 
I really think, Kathleen, I’ll write this very day and 
invite him to come round to tea some afternoon while 
the Canon’s with us.’ 

Kathleen stood aghast with horror. She quite 
understood Arnold Willoughby’s motives now ; with 
a flash of intuition, the minute she learned who he 
really was, she read at once the reasons for his strange 
behaviour. Something of the sort, indeed, had oc- 
curred to her as possible even before, when she con- 
trasted the man’s talk and wide range of information 


26 


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with his supposed position in life ; but now she knew 
who he was, it all burst at once upon her. And she 
had loved him as the common sailor ; that she had 
never concealed from her own heart for many days, 
since the trip to the 'Lido. He could never say of her 
in future it was his rank and his artificial position in 
the world that had captivated her fancy. She loved 
him for himself ; she knew it ; she was certain of it ! 
Had she not written it down in plain black and white 
in her diary ? Yet if he were to find out now that she 
had discovered his true name — Kathleen trembled to 
herself as she thought of the possible result, for she 
was very much in love — he might never ask her. She 
wished in her heart he was really Arnold Willoughby, 
the sailor-painter, or that she had never discovered 
the truth as to his artificial position. 

But something must be done at once to prevent 
this catastrophe which Mrs. Hesslegrave so innocently 
proposed to bring about. Kathleen seized her mother’s 
arm with a nervous clutch. 

‘Mother,’ she cried, much agitated, ‘for worlds you 
mustn’t write ! for worlds you mustn’t ask him ! Oh, 
promise me you won’t ask him ! You don’t know how 
much depends on it. For Heaven’s sake, say you 
won’t ; say you’ll do as I beg of you !’ 

Mrs. Hesslegrave, much puzzled as to what all this 
mystification and agitation could mean, yet drew back 
at once, and answered in perfect good faith : 

‘ Oh, certainly, certainly. I’ll do as you wish, dear ; 
though I’m sure I don’t know why. Such plot and 
counterplot is a great deal too deep for a poor simple 
old woman.’ 

Kathleen’s heart sank at the words. They were 
only too true. She felt sure she could trust her 


A MOTHER’S DILEMMA 


27 


mother’s good intentions implicitly ; but she was by 
no means so certain she could trust her discretion. 

‘ Though I’ve always said,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave re- 
marked in conclusion, ' he was really in his way a 
most charming person.’ 


CHAPTEK XII. 

A mother’s dilemma. 

Canon Valentine had intended to stop a week at 
Venice. He stopped just two days ; and then, to 
Kathleen’s secret joy and no small relief, bronchitis 
seized him. That stern monitor hurried him off in- 
continently to Florence. ‘ I’m sorry, Mrs. Hessle- 
grave,’ he said ; ‘ I can’t tell you how sorry. I’d 
looked forward to seeing everything in this charming 
place under your daughter’s guidance — she’s a capital 
, cicerone, I must say, your daughter ; we did so enjoy 
going round the Grand Canal with her the day before 
yesterday. It’s so delightful to see all these beautiful 
things in company with an artist ! But the damp of 
the lagoons is really too much for my poor old throat ; 
we’re given to throat-trouble, you see ; it’s common 
to my cloth ; and as I went along with Miss Hessle- 
grave to the Academy yesterday in an open gondola, 
I felt the cold air rise up bodily from the Canal and 
catch hold of me and throttle me. It took me just 
so, by the larynx, like a hand, and seemed to choke 
me instantly. Amelia,” said I at the time, this 
chilly air has done for me.” And, sure enough, I 
woke in the night with a tickle, tickle, tickle in my 
bronchial tubes, which I know means mischief. 


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When once that sets in, there’s nothing for it but to 
leave the place where you are immediately. Change 
the air without delay : that’s the one safe remedy. 
And indeed, to tell you the truth, Venice is so spoilt, 
so utterly spoilt, since the Austrians left it, that, 
except for you and Miss Hesslegrave, I must confess 
I shan’t be sorry to get out of it. Most insanitary 
town, I call it — most insanitary in every way.’ 

Kathleen could hardly even pretend to regret their 
departure. During the last two days she had lived 
in instant dread that the Canon would somehow knock 
up against Arnold Willoughby. And if the truth 
must be told, it was the very same dread on the 
Canon’s part, not bronchitis alone, that was driving 
him to Florence. For as they stood on the balcony 
of the Doges’ Palace the day before, looking out upon 
the Eiva and the busy quays and the panorama of 
the harbour. Canon Valentine beheld a man’s back 
in the distance, rounding the corner by Danieli’s, 
and he said to himself with a shudder : ‘ Axminster’s 
back — or the devil’s !’ (Being an old-fashioned clergy- 
man, the Canon, you will perceive, was not afraid of 
a very mild unparliamentary expression.) And the 
more convinced he became that the mysterious person 
thus flitting about Venice was really Lord Axminster, 
the more desirous did he grow to avoid the misfortune 
of actually meeting him. For if they met face to 
face, and caught one another’s eyes, the Canon 
hardly knew how, for very shame, he could let Algy 
go on with his claim of right without informing him 
— which he was loath to do — that his cousin Bertie 
had never been drowned at all, but had been sighted 
in the flesh, and in sailor costume, in the city of 
Venice. 


A MOTHER’S DILEMMA 


129 


There are compromises we all make now and again 
with our consciences ; and there are points where we 
feel the attempt at compromise becomes practically 
impossible. Now, the Canon was quite willing to give 
Algy and his wife the benefit of the doubt, as long as 
he felt only just morally certain that the person in 
the street with the trick of twisting his back hair was 
the last Lord Axminster. But if they met face to 
face, and he recognised his man without doubt, as 
he felt sure he must do when they came to close 
quarters, then the Canon felt in his heart he could 
no longer retain any grain of self-respect if he per- 
mitted the claim to be pushed through the House of 
Lords without even mentioning what he had seen to 
Algy. He might have kept silence, indeed, and let 
self-respect take its chance, if he met the man alone ; 
but what on earth could he do if he met him, full 
front, while out walking with Amelia ? That was the 
question. And I may remark parenthetically that 
most men feel keenly this necessity for preserving 
their self-respect before the face of their wives — 
which is a very important ally, indeed, to the cause 
of all the virtues. 

So, on the third morning of his stay, the Canon 
left Venice. Kathleen breathed freer as soon as he 
was gone. The load of that gnawing anxiety was 
much lightened upon her. 

That very same day, as it chanced, Arnold Wil- 
loughby, reflecting to himself in his own room, made 
his mind up suddenly to step round in the afternoon 
and have a word or two with Kathleen. Ever since 
that morning when they picnicked at the Lido, he 
had been debating with himself whether or not he 
should ask that beautiful soul to marry him ; and 

9 


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now his mind was made up ; he could resist no longer : 
he had decided that very day to break the ice and 
ask her. He was quite sure she liked him — liked him 
very, very much : that she showed unequivocally : 
and he had waited so long only because he couldn’t 
muster up courage to speak to her. Would it be 
right of him, he asked himself, to expect that any 
woman should share such fortunes as his would 
henceforth be? Was he justified in begging any 
woman to wait till an obscure young painter could 
earn money enough to keep her in the comfort and 
luxury to which she had been accustomed ? 

He put that question to himself seriously ; and he 
answered it in the affirmative. If he had really been 
always the Arnold Willoughby he had now made 
himself by his own act, he need never have doubted. 
Any young man, just starting in life, would have 
thought himself justified in asking the girl he loved 
best in the world to wait for him till he was m a 
position to marry her. Why should not he do what 
any other man might do lawfully ? He had cast the 
past behind him ; he was a painter sailor now ; but 
why need he hesitate on that account to ask the girl 
whose love he believed he had won on his own merits 
if she would wait till he could marry her ? Arnold 
Willoughby would have done it ; and he to as Arnold 
Willoughby. 

So, about three o’clock, he went round, somewhat 
tremulous, in the direction of the Piazza. He hadn’t 
seen Kathleen for a day or two ; she had told him 
friends would be visiting them, without mentioning 
their name; and she had given herself a holiday, 
while the friends were with her, from her accustomed 
work on the Fondamenta della Zattere. 


A MOTHER’S DILEMMA 


131 

When he got to the door, Francesca, who opened it, 
told him, with a sunny display of two rows of white 
teeth, that the signorina was out, but the signora was 
at home, if he would care to see her. 

Much disappointed, Arnold went up, anxious to 
learn whether any chance still remained that, later in 
the afternoon, he might have a word or two with 
Kathleen. To his immense surprise, the moment he 
entered, Mrs. Hesslegrave rose from her seat with 
obvious warmth, and held out her hand to greet him 
in her most gracious manner. Arnold had noticed by 
this time the seven distinct gradations of cordiality 
with which Mrs. Hesslegrave was accustomed to 
receive her various guests in accordance with their 
respective and relative positions in the table of prece- 
dence as by authority established. This afternoon, 
therefore, he couldn’t help observing her manner was 
that with which she was wont to welcome peers of the 
realm and foreign ambassadors. To say the truth, 
Mrs. Hesslegrave considerably overdid it in the matter 
of graciousness. There was an inartistic abruptness 
in her sudden change of front, a practical inconsist- 
ency in her view of his status, which couldn’t fail to 
strike him. The instant way in which Mrs. Hessle- 
grave, who had hitherto taken little pains to conceal 
her dislike and distrust of the dreadful sailor man, 
flung herself visibly at his head, made Arnold at once 
suspect some radical revolution must have taken place 
meanwhile in her views as to his position. 

‘ Why, Mr. Willoughby,’ she cried, holding his 
hand in her own much longer than was strictly neces- 
sary for the purpose of shaking it, ‘ what a stranger 
you are, to be sure ! You never come near us now. 
It’s really quite unfriendly of you. Kathleen was 


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saying this morning we must write round to your 
chambers and ask you to dine with us. And she 
hasn’t seen you for the last day or two on the Zattere, 
either ! Poor child ! she’s been so occupied. We’ve 
had some friends here, who’ve been taking up all 
our time. Kitty’s been out in a gondola all day 
long with them. However, that’s all over, and she 
hopes to get to work again on the quay to-morrow — 
she’s so anxious to go on with her Spire and Canal ; 
wrapped up in her art, dear girl — you know, it’s all 
she lives for. However, she’ll be back at it, I’m glad 
to say, at the old place, in the morning. Our friends 
are just gone — couldn’t stand the climate — said it gave 
them sore throats— and Kathleen’s gone off to say 
good-bye to them at the station.’ 

‘ That’s fortunate,’ Arnold answered a little stiffly, 
feeling, somehow, a dim consciousness that, against 
his will, he was once more a lord, and lapsing for the 
moment into his early bad habit of society small-talk. 

‘ the lights on the Canal have been lovely the last 
^tlfree days, and I’ve regretted so much Miss Hessle- 
grave should have missed them.’ 

‘ Not more than she has, I’m sure,’ Mrs. Hessle- 
grave went on, quite archly, with her blandest smile — 

‘ mother’s society smirk,’ as that irreverent boy Keggie 
was wont to term it. ‘ I don’t know why, I’m sure, Mr. 
Willoughby, but Kathleen has enjoyed her painting on 
the quay this winter and spring a great deal more than 
she ever before enjoyed it. It’s been a perfect treat to 
her. She says she can’t bear to be away for one day from 
that dear old San Trovaso. She just loves her work ; 
and I assure you she seemed almost sentimentally sad 
because these friends who’ve been stopping with us 
kept her away so long from her beloved picture. — And 


A MOTHER'S DILEMMA 


133 


from her fellow-artists,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave added after 
a pause, in some little trepidation, uncertain whether 
that last phrase might not go just one step too far in 
the right direction. 

Arnold Willoughby eyed her closely. All his 
dearest suspicions were being fast aroused ; he began 
to tremble in his heart lest somebody had managed to 
pierce the close disguise with which he had so care- 
fully and so long surrounded himself. 

‘Will Miss Hesslegrave be back by-and-by?’ he 
asked in a coldly official tone. ‘ Because, if she will, 
I should like to stop and see her.’ 

Mrs. Hesslegrave jumped at the chance with unwise 
avidity. This was the very first time, in fact, that 
Arnold Willoughby had ever asked to see her daughter 
in so many words. She scented a proposal. 

‘ Oh yes,’ she answered, acquiescent, with obvious 
eagerness, though she plumed herself inwardly as she 
spoke upon her own bland ingenuity ; ‘ Kathleen will 
be back by-and-by from the station, and will be 
delighted to see you. I know there’s some point in tffat 
last year’s picture she’s touching up that she said she 
wanted to consult you about, if possible. I shall have 
to go out myself at four, unfortunately — I’m engaged 
to an “ at home ” at dear Lady Devonport’s ; but I dare 
say Kathleen can give you a cup of tea here ; and no 
doubt you and she can make yourselves happy to- 
gether.’ 

She beamed as she said it. The appointment with 
Lady Devonport was a myth, to be sure ; but Mrs. 
Hesslegrave thought it would be wise, under the 
circumstances, to leave the young people alone with 
one another. Arnold Willoughby’s suspicions grew 
deeper and deeper. Mrs. Hesslegrave was one of 


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those transparent people whose little deceptions are 
painfully obvious ; he could see at half a glance some- 
thing must have occurred which gave her all at once a 
much more favourable view of him. He measured 
her doubtfully with his eye. Mrs. Hesslegrave in 
return showered her sweetest smile upon him. She 
was all obsequiousness. Then she began to talk with 
ostentatious motherly pride about Kathleen. She 
was S2ich a good girl ! Few mothers had a comfort 
like that in their daughters. The only thing Mrs. 
Hesslegrave couldn’t bear was the distressing thought 
that sooner or later Kathleen must some day leave 
her. That woiild be a trial. But there ! no mother 
can expect to keep her daughter always by her side : 
it would be selfish, wouldn’t it? — and Kathleen was 
adapted to make a good man so supremely happy. 
And then Mrs. Hesslegrave, leaning forward in her 
chair, grew almost confidential. Had Mr. Willoughby 
noticed that Mr. Mortimer, the rich young American, 
thought so much of Kathleen ? Well, he certainly 
did ; he quite haunted the house ; though Mrs. 
Hesslegrave believed in her heart of hearts Kathleen 
didn’t really care one bit for him. And she was a 
girl of such high principle — such very high principle ! 
Unless she truly loved a man — was fascinated, 
absorbed in him — she never would marry him, 
though he were as rich as Croesus. Kathleen meant 
to come back by the Zattere, she believed ; and she 
knew Mr. Mortimer would be waiting there to see her ; 
he always hung about and waited to see her every- 
where. But Kathleen was such a romantic, poetical- 
minded girl ! She would rather take the man of her 
choice, Mrs. Hesslegrave believed — with an impressive 
nod of the coffee-coloured Honiton head-dress — than 


A MOTHER'S DILEMMA 


135 


marry the heir to all the estates in England, if he 
didn’t happen to please her fancy. 

As she maundered on, floundering further into the 
mire each moment, Arnold Willoughby’s conviction 
that something had gone wrong grew deeper and 
deeper with every sentence. He shuffled uneasily on 
his chair. For the first time since he had practically 
ceased to be an Earl, he saw a British mamma quite 
obviously paying court to him. He would have liked 
to go, indeed, this queer talk made him feel so 
awkward and uncomfortable ; it reminded him of the 
days when adulation was his bane : more still, it 
jarred against his sense of maternal dignity. But 
he couldn’t go, somehow. Now the doubt was once 
aroused, he must wait at least till Kathleen returned 
— that he might see her, and be rid of it. Yet all 
this strange dangling of inartistically-wrought flies 
before the victim’s eye was disagreeably familiar to 
him. He had heard a round dozen of Mayfair 
mammas talk so to him of their daughters, and 
always in the same pretended confidential strain, 
when he was an Earl and a catch in London society ; 
though he confessed to himself with a shudder that 
he had never yet heard anybody do it quite so 
fatuously, transparently, and woodenly as Kathleen’s 
mother. She, poor soul ! went on with bland self- 
satisfaction, convinced in her own soul she was 
making the running for Kathleen in the most masterly 
fashion, and utterly unaware of the disgust she 
was rousing in Arnold Willoughby’s distracted 
bosom. 

At last, Arnold’s suspicions could no longer be 
concealed. The deeper Mrs. Hesslegrave probed, the 
more firmly convinced did her patient become that 


AT MARKET VALUE 


136 

she had somehow surprised his inmost secret, and 
was trying all she knew to capture him for Kathleen ; 
and trying most ineptly. This sudden change of 
front from her attitude of sullen non-recognition to 
one of ardent sycophancy roused all his bitterest and 
most cynical feelings. Was this day-dream, then, 
doomed to fade as his earlier one had faded? Was 
Kathleen, the sweet Kathleen he had invested to 
himself in his fervid fancy with all the innocent 
virtues, to crush his heart a second time as Lady 
Sark had once crushed it? Was she, too, a self- 
seeker ? Did she know who he was, and what title 
he bore ? Was she allowing him to make love to her 
for his money (such as it was) and his earldom ? 

With a sudden resolve, he determined to put the 
question to the proof forthwith. He knew Mrs. 
Hesslegrave well enough to know she could never 
control her face or her emotions. Whatever passed 
within, that quick countenance betrayed to the most 
casual observer. So, at a pause in the conversation 
(when Mrs. Hesslegrave was just engaged in wonder- 
ing to herself what would be a good fresh subject to 
start next with an Earl in disguise whom you desired 
to captivate), Arnold turned round to her sharply, 
and asked with a rapid swoop, which fairly took her 
off her guard : ‘ Have you seen the English papers ? 
Do you know what’s being done in this Axminster 
peerage case?’ 

It was a bold stroke of policy; but it committed 
him to nothing, for the subject was a common one, 
and it was justified by the result. Mrs. Hesslegrave, 
full herself of this very theme, looked up at him in 
astonishment, hardly knowing how to take it. She 
gave a little start, and trembled quite visibly. In 


A MOTHER'S DILEMMA 


37 


her perplexity, indeed, she clapped her hand to her 
mouth, as one will often do when the last subject on 
earth one expected to hear broached is suddenly 
sprung upon one. The movement was unmistakable. 
So was the frightened and hesitating way in which 
Mrs. Hesslegrave responded as quickly as she could : 
‘ Oh yes — that is to say, no — well, we haven’t seen 
much about it. But — the young man’s dead, of 
course — or, do you think he’s living ? I mean — well, 
really, it’s so difficult, don’t you know, in such a 
perplexing case, to make one’s mind up about it.’ 

She drew out her handkerchief and wiped her fore- 
head in her confusion. She would have given ten 
pounds that moment to have Kathleen by her side to 
prompt and instruct her. Arnold Willoughby pre- 
served a face of sphinx-like indifference. How 
dreadful that he should have boarded her with that 
difficult and dangerous subject ! What would Kath- 
leen wish her to do ? Ought she to pretend to ignore 
it all, or did he mean her to recognise him ? 

‘Is he dead or living? Which do you think?’ 
Arnold asked again, gazing hard at her. 

Mrs. Hesslegrave quailed. It was a trying moment. 
People oughtn’t to lay such traps for poor innocent 
old women, whose only desire, after all, is the perfectly 
natural one to see their daughters well and creditably 
married. She looked back at her questioner with a 
very frightened air. 

‘ Well, of course, you know,’ she faltered out, with 
a glimmering perception of the fact that she was 
irrevocably committing herself to a dangerous position. 

‘ If it comes to that, you must know better than any- 
one.’ 

‘ Why so ?’ Arnold Willoughby persisted. He 


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wasn’t going to say a word either way to compromise 
his own incognito; but he was determined to find 
out just exactly how much Mrs. Hesslegrave knew 
about the matter of his identity. 

Mrs. Hesslegrave gazed up at him with tears rising 
fast in her poor puzzled eyes. 

‘Oh, what shall I do?’ she cried, wringing her 
hands in her misery and perplexity. ‘ How cruel 
you are to try me so ! What ought I to answer ? 
I’m afraid Kathleen will be so dreadfully angry with 
me.’ 

‘ Why angry ?’ Arnold Willoughby asked once more, 
his heart growing like a stone within him as he spoke. 
Then, the worst was true. This was a deliberate con- 
spiracy. 

‘ Because,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave blurted out, ‘ Kathleen 
told me I wasn’t on any account to mention a word of 
all this to you or to anybody. She told me that was 
imperative. She said it would spoil all — those were 
her very words ; she said it would spoil all ; and she 
begged me not to mention it. And now I’m afraid 
I have spoiled all ! Oh, Mr. Willoughby — Lord 
Axminster, I mean — for Heaven’s sake, don’t be 
angry with me. Don’t say I’ve spoiled all ! Don’t 
say so ! Don’t reproach me with it !’ 

‘ That you certainly have,’ Arnold answered with 
disdain, growing colder and visibly colder each 
moment. ‘ You’ve spoiled more than you know — two 
lives that might otherwise perhaps have been happy. 
x\nd yet — it’s best so. Better wake up to it now than 
wake up to it — afterwards. Miss Hesslegrave has been 
less wise and circumspect in this matter, though, 
than in the rest of her conduct. She took me in com- 
pletely. And if she hadn’t been so ill-advised as to 


A MOTHER'S DILEMMA 


139 


confide her conclusions and suspicions to you, why, 
she might very likely have taken me in for ever. As 
it is, this eclaircissement has come in good time. No 
harm has yet been done. No word has yet passed. 
An hour or two later, the result, I dare say, might 
have been far more serious.’ 

‘ She didn’t tell me,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave burst out, 
anxious, now the worst had come, to make things 
easier for Kathleen, and to retrieve her failure. ‘ It 
wasn’t she who told me. I found it out for myself — 
that is, through somebody else ’ 

* Found out ivliatV Arnold asked coldly, fixing his 
eye upon hers with a stony glare. 

Mrs. Hesslegrave looked away from him in abject 
terror. That glance of his froze her. 

‘ Why, found out that you were Lord Axminster,’ 
she answered with one burst, not knowing what to 
make of him. ‘ She knew it all along, you know ; but 
she never told me or betrayed your secret. She never 
even mentioned it to me, her mother. She kept it 
quite faithfully. She was ever so wise about it. I 
couldn’t imagine why she — well, took so much notice 
of a man I supposed to be nothing but a common 
sailor ; and it was only yesterday, or the day before, 
I discovered by accident she had known it all along, 
and had recognised the born gentleman under all dis- 
guises.’ 

Mrs. Hesslegrave thought that last was a trump 
card to play on Kathleen’s behalf. But Arnold Wil- 
loughby rose. 

‘Well, you may tell Miss Hesslegrave,’ he said 
stiffly, ‘ that if she thought she was going to marry 
an English Earl, and live like a Countess, she was 
very much mistaken. That was wholly an error. 


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The man who loved her till ten minutes ago — the 
man she seemed to love — the man who, thinking she 
loved him, came here to ask for her hand this very 
afternoon, and whom she would no doubt have 
accepted under that painful misapprehension — is and 
means to remain a common sailor. She has made 
a mistake — that’s all. She has miscalculated her 
chances. It’s fortunate, on the whole, that mistake 
and miscalculation have gone no farther. If I had 
married her under the misapprehension which seems 
to have occurred, she might have had in the end a 
very bitter awakening. Such a misfortune has been 
averted by your lucky indiscretion. You may say 
good-bye for me to Miss Hesslegrave when she returns. 
It is not my intention now to remain any longer in 
Venice.’ 

‘But you’ll stop and see Kathleen!’ Mrs. Hessle- 
grave exclaimed, awe-struck. 

‘No, thank you,’ Arnold answered, taking his hat 
in his hand. ‘ What you tell me is quite enough. It 
is my earnest wish, after the error that has occurred, 
never as long as I live to set eyes on her again. You 
may give her that message. You have, indeed, 
spoiled all. It is she herself who said it I’ 


CHAPTEE XIII. 

A MISSING LOVEE. 

’Twas in bitter disappointment that Arnold Willoughby 
strode away from the Hesslegraves’ door that afternoon 
in Venice. For the second time in his life his day- 
dream had vanished. And the new bubble had burst 


A MISSING LOVER 141 

even more painfully than the old one. He was young, 
he said to himself, when he fell in love, with Blanche 
Middleton. With a boy’s simplicity, he mistook the 
mere blushing awkwardness and uncertainty of the 
ingmue for innocence of mind and purity of purpose. 
He had a rude awakening when he saw Lady Sark 
sell herself for money and title, and develop into one 
of the vainest and showiest among the heartless clan 
of professional beauties. But this time, he had said 
to his own heart, he was older and wiser. No such 
hasty mistakes for him nowadays ! He knew the 
difference now between the awkward bashfulness of 
the frightened school-girl and the pure white integrity 
of a noble-minded woman. Bit by bit, Kathleen 
Hesslegrave had won back the soured misogynist to a 
belief in her sex, in its goodness, in its unselfishness, 
in its nobility of nature. He knew she could have 
married Eufus Mortimer if she wished; but he 
believed she had refused him for the penniless sailor’s 
sake. It was because he believed her capable of real 
disinterested affection like that, that he had fallen in 
love with Kathleen Hesslegrave. 

And now, what a disillusion ! He found he had been 
mistaken in her from the very beginning. The woman 
whom he had thought so far raised above her fellows 
that she could love a struggling artist, without past, 
without future, for his own sake alone, turned out, 
after all, to be an intriguer, more calculating and 
more deceitful in her way than Lady Sark herself 
had been. Kathleen must have known from the 
beginning that the man whose advances she had 
accepted with so much blushing uncertainty and with 
such pretty coyness was really Lord Axminster. She 
had been saying those sweet things, about respecting 


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him so much and not caring for rank or wealth or 
position, because she thought that was] the way that 
would lead her to a coronet. With incredible cunning 
and deceptiveness, she had managed to hide from him 
her knowledge of his original position, and to assume 
a sort of instinctive shrinking from his lowly calling, 
which she allowed her love and respect to overcome, 
as it were, quite visibly before his eyes, with consum- 
mate cleverness. As a piece of fine acting in real life 
it was nothing short of admirable. If that girl were 
to go upon the stage now, Arnold said to himself 
bitterly, she would make her fortune. Those modest 
side-glances; those dexterously summoned blushes; 
that timid demeanour at first, giving way with fuller 
acquaintance to an uncontrollable affection, so strong 
that it compelled her, against her will, as it seemed, 
to overlook the prejudices of birth, and to forget the 
immense gulf in artificial position — oh, as acting it 
was marvellous ! But to think it was only that ! 

Arnold Willoughby’s brain reeled. Ah, why could 
he never cast this birthright of false adulation and 
vile sycophancy behind him? W^hy could he never 
stand out before the world on his merits as a man, 
and be accepted or rejected for himself alone, without 
the intervention of this perpetual reference to his arti- 
ficial value and his place in the peerage ? 

And the secrecy of it, too ! The baseness ! The 
privy planning and plotting! Why, this woman, 
whom he imagined all frankness and candour, with a 
heart as straightforward as that open brave face of 
hers, had concocted this vile trap to catch a coronet 
unawares, all by herself, unaided, and had concealed 
her inmost thoughts from her own mother even. 
There was a cold-blooded deliberateness about it all 


A MISSING LOVER 


143 


which disgusted and disillusioned Arnold Willoughby 
on the first blush of it. He had gone into that house 
that afternoon in a lover’s fever and with a lover’s 
fervour, saying to himself as he crossed the thres- 
hold : 

‘ There is none like her, none ; I shall ask her this 
very day ; I could risk my life for her with joy ; I 
could stake my existence on her goodness and purity !’ 

And now — he came out of it coldly numb and 
critical. He hated to think he had been so readily 
deceived by a clever woman’s wiles. He hated and 
despised himself. Never again while he lived would 
he trust a single one of them. Their most innocent 
smile hides their blackest treachery. 

It’s a way men have, when they are out of conceit 
for a time with their wives or their sweethearts. 

As for poor Mrs. Hesslegrave, the unoffending cause 
of all this lamentable misapprehension, she sat by 
herself, meanwhile, wringing her hands in impotent 
despair, in her own drawing-room, and wondering 
when Kathleen would come in to comfort her. Each 
minute seemed an hour. What could be keeping 
Kathleen ? As a rule, the dear child came back so 
soon from such errands as this to her beloved work ; 
for Kathleen was never so happy as when painting or 
sketching ; and she wrought with a will, both for 
love’s sake and money’s. But to-day she was some- 
how unaccountably delayed. Her stars were unpro- 
pitious. And the real cause of the delay, as fate 
would have it, was one of those petty circumstances 
upon which our lives all hinge. She had gone round 
on her way home by the Fondamenta delle Zattere, 
as a woman in love will do, expecting to find Arnold 
Willoughby at work on his canvas there, and hoping 


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to seem as if mere accident had brought her back to 
the place she had abandoned during the Valentines’ 
visit. Three days was so long a time to go without 
seeing Arnold ! But instead of finding him, she had 
fallen in with Eufus Mortimer, engaged upon his 
christening scene ; and Mortimer, guessing her object, 
and generously anxious, as was his nature, to aid her 
in her love affair, had kept her talking long in front 
of the picture he was painting, under the belief that 
Arnold would shortly turn up, and that he was doing 
her a kindness by thus making her presence there 
seem more natural and less open to misconstruction. 

Yet, as often happens in this world of mischance, 
Mortimer’s very anxiety to help her defeated his own 
purpose. It was the kind-hearted young American’s 
fate in life to do as much harm by his well-intentioned 
efforts as many worse natures do by their deliberate 
malice. 

Into this unconscious trap Kathleen fell readily 
enough, and waited on as long as she could, in the 
vain hope that Arnold Willoughby would turn up 
sooner or later. But when at last it seemed clear that 
he was taking an afternoon off, and wouldn’t be there 
at all, she accepted Mortimer’s offer of a lift home in 
his gondola, and, having wasted her day hopelessly by 
this time, went in on her way back to fulfil a few 
small commissions at shops in the Calle San 
Moise, which still further delayed her return to her 
mother’s. 

When she reached home and went upstairs she was 
astonished to find Mrs. Hesslegrave rocking herself up 
and down distractedly in her chair, and the yellow 
Honiton head-dress in a last stage of disorder, which 
betokened a long spell of very vigorous misery. ‘ Why, 


A MISSING LOVER 


145 


mother dear,’ she cried in alarm, ‘ what has happened 
since I went out? You haven’t had another letter 
from Eeggie, asking for money, have you ?’ 

Mrs. Hesslegrave broke down. 

‘ I wish I had,’ she answered, sobbing. ‘ I wish it 
was only that ! I wish it was Reggie ! Oh, Kitty, 
Kitty, Kitty, how am I ever to tell you ? He’s been 
here since you went out. And you’ll never, never 
forgive me.’ 

‘ He’s been here ?’ Kathleen repeated, not knowing 
what her mother could mean. ‘ Reggie’s been here ? 
To-day ? Not at this house — in Venice !’ 

‘ No, no, no ! not Reggie,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave an- 
swered, rocking herself up and down still more 
vigorously than before. ‘Mr. Willoughby — Lord 
Axminster.’ 

In a second the colour fled from Kathleen’s cheek 
as if by magic. Her heart grew cold. She trembled 
all over. 

‘ Mr. Willoughby !’ she cried, clasping her bloodless 
hands. Every nerve in her body quivered. Never till 
that moment did she know how far her love had 
carried her. ‘ Oh, mother, what did you say ? What 
did he do ? What has happened ?’ 

‘ He’s gone !’ Mrs. Hesslegrave cried feebly, wring- 
ing her hands in her distress. ‘ He’s gone for good 
and all. He told me to say good-bye to you.’ 

‘ Good-bye !’ Kathleen echoed, horror-struck. ‘ Good- 
bye ! Oh, mother ! Where’s he going, then ? What 
can it mean ? This is very, very sudden.’ 

‘ I don’t know,’ Mrs. Hesslegrave answered, burst- 
ing afresh into tears. ‘ But he said I’d spoiled all. 
He said so more than once. And he told me it was 
you yourself who said so.’ 


10 


46 


AT MARKET VALUE 


For a minute or two Kathleen was too agitated 
even to inquire in any intelligent way what exactly 
had happened. Just at first, all she knew was a 
vague consciousness of fate, a sense that some terrible 
blow had fallen upon her. Her mother had com- 
mitted some fatal indiscretion ; and Arnold was 
gone — gone, without an explanation ! But slowly, 
as she thought of it all, it began to dawn upon her 
what must have happened. With a fearful sinking at 
heart, she hardened herself for the effort, and drew 
slowly from the reluctant and penitent Mrs. Hessle- 
grave a full and complete confession of her share in 
this misfortune. Bit by bit, Mrs. Hesslegrave allowed 
the whole painful and humiliating scene to be wrung 
out of her, piecemeal. As soon as she had finished, 
Kathleen stood up and faced her. She did not 
reproach her mother ; the wound had gone too deep 
by far for reproach ; but her very silence was more 
terrible to Mrs. Hesslegrave than any number of 
reproaches. 

‘ I must go, mother,’ she cried, breaking away from 
her like some wild and wounded creature ; ‘ I must go 
at once and see him. This cruel misapprehension is 
more than I can endure. I didn’t know who he was 
till Canon Valentine told us. I fell in love with 
him for himself, as a common sailor ; I never knew 
he was Lord Axminster. I must go and tell him 
so!’ 

Mrs. Hesslegrave’ s sense of propriety was severely 
outraged. Not only was it dreadful to think that a 
young lady could have fallen in love with a man 
unasked, and that man, too, a common sailor ; but it 
was dreadful also that Kathleen should dream of going 
to see him in person, instead of writing to explain to 


A MISSING LOVER 


147 


him, and asking him to call round for the further 
clearing up of this painful entanglement. 

‘ Oh, my dear,’ she cried, drawing back, ‘you’re not 
surely going to call for him ! It would look so bad ! 
Do you think it would be right ? Do you think it 
would be womanly ?’ 

‘Yes, I do!’ Kathleen answered with unwonted 
boldness. ‘ Eight and womanly to the last degree. 
Most right and most womanly. Mother dear, I don’t 
blame you; you did what you thought best in my 
interest, as you imagined ; but you have left him under 
a cruel misapprehension of my character and motives 
— a misapprehension that would be dreadful for me 
to bear with anyone, but ten thousand times worse 
with a nature like Arnold Willoughby’s ; and I can’t 
sit down under it. I can’t rest till I’ve seen him and 
told him how utterly mistaken he is about me. There’s 
no turning back now. I must and shall see him.’ 

And in her own heart she said to herself a great 
deal more than that — ‘ I must and shall marry him.’ 

So, with face on fire and eager steps that never 
paused, she rushed hotly down the stairs and out into 
the Piazza. The pigeons crowded round her as if 
nothing had happened. Thence she took the narrow 
lane that led most directly, by many bridges, to the 
little salt-fish shop, and went to make her first call on 
the man of her choice at his own lodgings. 

Little Cecca was at the door, playing with a big 
new doll. She looked up with a smile at the beautiful 
lady, whom she recognised as the person she had 
seen out walking one day with ‘ our Inglese.’ 

‘ Is the signore at home ?’ Kathleen asked, too 
deeply moved to return the child’s smile, yet touching 
her golden head gently. 


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The little one looked up at her again with all the 
saucy southern confidingness. ‘ No, he isn’t,’ she 
answered, dimpling. ‘ The signore’s gone away ; but 
he gave me two lire before he went, don’t you see, and 
I bought this pretty doll with it, at neighbour 
Giacomo’s. Isn’t it a pretty one ? And it cost all 
two lire.’ 

‘Gone away?’ Kathleen echoed, a cold thrill coming 
over her. ‘ Gone away ? Not from Venice ?’ 

The child nodded and puffed out her lips. 

‘ Si, si,’ she said, ‘ from Venice.’ And then she 
went on singing in her childish nursery rhyme : 

‘ Vate a far una barca o una batela ; 

Co ti I’a fata, butila in mar ; 

La ti condurra in Venezia bela.’ 

‘ But he hasn’t done that,’ she added in her baby-like 
prattle. ‘He’s taken his boat and gone away from 
Venice; away from Venice; from Venezia bela; right 
away, right away from Venezia bela.’ 

Kathleen stood for a moment reeling. The child’s 
words unnerved her. She had hard work to restrain 
herself from fainting then and there. A terrible 
weakness seemed to break over her suddenly. Gone ! 
and with that fatal misapprehension on his mind. 
Oh, it was too, too cruel. She staggered into the 
shop. With an effort she burst out : 

‘ The signore, your lodger — the Inglese — Signor 
Willoughby ?’ 

A large young woman of the florid Venetian type, 
broad of face and yellow of hair, like a vulgarized 
Titian, was sitting behind the counter knitting away 
at a coloured head-dress : she nodded and looked 
grave. Like all Italians, she instantly suspected a 


A MISSING LOVER 


149 


love-tragedy, of the kind with which she herself was 
familiar. 

‘ Is gone !’ she assented in a really sympathetic 
tone. ‘ Si, si, is gone, signora. The little one says 
the truth. Is gone this very evening.’ 

‘ But where ?’ Kathleen cried, refraining with a 
struggle from wringing her poor hands, and repress- 
ing the rising tears before the stranger’s face with 
visible difficulty. 

The bountiful-looking Italian woman spread her 
hands open by her side with a demonstrative air. 

‘ Who knows ?’ she answered placidly. ‘ ’Tis the way 
with these seafarers. A hella ragazza in every port, 
they say ; one here, one there ; one in Venice, one in 
London — and perhaps, for all we know, one in Buenos 
Ayres, Calcutta, Eio. — But he may write to you, 
signora ! He may come back again to Italy !’ 

Kathleen shook her head sadly. Much as the 
woman misunderstood the situation, reading into it 
the ideas and habits of her own class and country, 
Kathleen felt she meant to be kind, and was grateful 
for even that mechanical kindness at such a terrible 
moment. 

‘He will not return,’ she answered despairingly, 
with a terrible quiver in her voice. ‘ But it wasn’t 
that I wanted. I wanted to speak with him before he 
went, and — and to clear up a misconception. — Which 
way has he gone, do you know ? By sea or by land ? 
The port or the railway- station ?’ 

There was time even yet ; for at that moment, as 
it chanced, Arnold Willoughby was still engaged in 
registering his luggage for Genoa, whence he hoped 
to get employment on some homeward-bound steamer. 
And if the woman had told the truth, much trouble 


AT MARKET VALUE 


150 

would have been averted. But truth is an article of 
luxury in Italy. The vulgarized Titian looked at 
Kathleen searchingly, yet with a pitying glance. 

‘Oh, he’s gone,’ she answered, nodding her head; 

‘ he’s gone altogether. He got out his box and his 
pictures quite suddenly just now; and our Pietro 
rowed him olf to a steamer in the harbour. And I 
saw the steamer sail ; she’s at the Lido by this time. 
But he’ll write ; he’ll write, make sure ! Don’t take 
it to heart, signora.’ 

Kathleen pressed her hand to her bosom, to still its 
throbbing, and went forth into the street. All was 
black as night for her. She- staggered home in a 
maze. Her head reeled unspeakably. But as soon 
as she was gone, the woman turned to a man who 
lounged among the packing-cases at the back of the 
shop, with a smile of triumph. 

‘ He was a good fellow,’ she said, with true Southern 
tolerance, ‘ and I wasn’t going to tell her he’d gone by 
train to Genoa. Not likely I should ! You know 
what she wanted ? She would have stuck a knife into 
him. I saw it in her eye, and, aha ! I prevented it. 
But sailors will be sailors ; and. Signor Villabi, say I, 
was always a pleasant one. Why should I wish him 
harm? He liked little Cecca, and paid his bill 
punctually. She’s not the first signora, we all know 
well, who has been deceived and deserted by a good- 
looking sailor. But what would you have ? ’Tis the 
way of them ! Mariners, mariners — like the gulls of 
Marano ! Here to-day, and there to-morrow !’ 


THE AXMINSTER PEERAGE 


5 


CHAPTEE XIV. 

THE AXMINSTER PEERAGE. 

At Genoa, as luck would have it, Arnold Willoughby 
found a place on a homeward-bound brigantine direct 
for London. That was all he wanted. He craved for 
action. He was a sailor once more, and had cast art 
behind him. No more dalliance with the luxurious 
muse of painting. In the daily drudgery of the sea, 
in the teeth of the wind, he would try to forget his 
bitter disappointment. Hard work and dog-watches 
might suffice to cauterize the raw surface of the wound 
Kathleen Hesslegrave had unwillingly and unwittingly 
inflicted. 

He did wrong to fly from her, of course, without 
giving her at least the chance of an explanation ; but, 
then, that was exactly Arnold Willoughby’s nature. 
He would have been other than himself if he had not 
so acted. Extreme modifiability was the keynote of 
his character. The self-same impulse which had 
made him in the first instance sink name and indi- 
viduality at a moment’s notice, in order to become a 
new man and a common sailor, made him also in the 
second instance rush at once to the conclusion that 
he had been basely deceived, and drove him to re- 
model, without a second’s delay, his whole scheme of 
life and activity for the future. Half gentleman, half 
gipsy, he was a man of principle, and yet a creature 
of impulse. The instant he found his plans going 
hopelessly wrong, he was ready to alter them off-hand 
with drastic severity. 

And yet, he said to himself, it was never his own 


152 


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individuality he got rid of at all. That alone persisted. 
All these changes and disguises were forced upon him, 
indeed, by the difficulty of realizing his own inner 
personality in a world which insisted on accepting him 
as an Earl, instead of reckoning him up, as he wished, 
at his intrinsic value as a human being. That intrinsic 
value Arnold Willoughby was determined to discover 
and appraise, no matter at what cost of trouble and 
disillusion ; his naked worth as a man among men 
was the only kind of worth he cared one jot or tittle 
to realize. 

When he reached London, therefore, he decided to 
see what steps were being taken in the vexed question 
of the Axminster peerage, before he engaged for a 
longer voyage to the Northern seas, which he liked 
best to sail in bracing summer weather. So, on the 
very afternoon of his discharge from the brigantine, 
where he had signed for the single voyage only, he 
walked into a coffee-house on the river bank, and 
invested a ha’penny in an evening paper. He was 
not long in coming upon the item he wanted : ‘ Ax- 
minster Peerage Case. — This afternoon, the House of 
Lords will deliver judgment upon the claim of Algernon 
Loftus Eedburn, eldest son of the late Honourable 
Algernon Eedburn, of Musbury, Devonshire, to the 
Earldom of Axminster. The case is a romantic one. 
It will be remembered that the seventh Earl, who was 
a person of most eccentric habits and ideas, closely 
bordering upon insanity, disappeared without warning 
from London society ’ — and so forth, and so forth. 

Arnold set down the paper, with a deeper curl than 
usual at the corner of his genial mouth. It ‘ bordered 
on insanity,’ of course, for a born gentleman, who 
might have spent his time in dining, calling, shooting 


THE AXMINSTER PEERAGE 


153 


grouse, and running racehorses, to determine upon 
doing some useful work in the world ! So very un- 
dignified ! Arnold was quite familiar by this time 
with that curious point of view ; ’tis the point of view 
of nine-tenths of the world in this United Kingdom ; 
but none the less, every time he saw it solemnly com- 
mitted to print, it amused him afresh by its utter in- 
congruity. The contrast between the reality and the 
grasp of life he obtained in his chosen vocation of 
sailor, with the shadowy superficiality of the existence 
he had led in the days when he was still Lord Ax- 
minster, made such criticism seem to him rather 
childish than unkindly. 

He made up his mind at once. He would go down 
to the House and see them play this little farce out. 
He would be present to hear whether, on the authority 
of the highest court in the realm, he was dead or 
living. He would watch the last irrevocable nail 
being knocked into his coffin as Earl of Axminster, 
and would emerge with the certainty that some other 
man now bore the title which once was his, and that 
he was legally defunct by decision of Parliament. 

Go down to the House ! Then a little laugh seized 
him. He was thinking of it to himself as he used to 
think in the days when he had but to order his 
carriage and drive down from Eaton Place to the 
precincts of Westminster. What chance would there 
be for a sailor in his seaman’s dress to get into the 
House by mere asking for a place ? Not much, he 
confessed to himself. However, he would try. There 
was something that pleased him in the idea of the 
bare chance that he might be turned back from the 
doors of the Chamber to which he hereditarily belonged 
on the day when he was to be declared no longer living. 


154 


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It would be funny if the Lords refused to let him hear 
them pronounce their decision of his own death ; 
funnier still if they solemnly declared him dead in his 
living presence. 

So he walked by St. Paul’s and the Embankment 
to Westminster, and presented himself at that well- 
known door where once — nay, where still — he had, by 
law and descent, the right of entry. It was a private 
business day, he knew, and their lordships would only 
be sitting as a committee of privilege ; in other words, 
half a dozen law lords would have come down sleepily, 
as a matter of duty, to decide the vexed question of 
the peerage before them. On such occasions, the 
Strangers’ Gallery is never at all full; and Arnold 
hoped he might be lucky enough to corrupt by his 
eloquence the virtue of the under door-keeper. The 
door-keeper, however, was absolutely incorruptible 
— except, of course, by gold, which was too rare 
an object now for Arnold to bestow upon him 
lightly. 

‘I don’t know all the peers by sight,’ the official 
said with some contempt, surveying the new-comer 
from head to foot ; ‘ there’s peers from the country 
that turn up now and again when there’s important 
bills on, that you wouldn’t know from farmers. Times 
like that, we let any gentleman in who’s dressed as 
such, and who says he’s a Markis. But you ain’t a 
peer, anyhow ; you ain’t got the cut of it. Nor you 
don’t much look like a Distinguished Stranger.’ 

And the door-keeper laughed heartily at his own 
humour. 

Arnold laughed in turn, and walked away discon- 
solate. He was just on the point of giving up the 
attempt in despair, when he saw an old law lord enter. 


THE AXMINSTER PEERAGE 


55 


whom he knew well by sight as a judge of appeal, and 
who had the reputation of being a good-humoured 
and accessible person. Arnold boarded him at once 
with a polite request for a pass to the gallery. The 
old peer looked at him in surprise. 

‘Are you interested in the case?’ he asked, seeing 
the sailor’s garb and the weather-beaten features. 

Arnold answered with truth : 

‘ Well, I know something of the man they called 
Douglas Overton.’ 

Lord Helvellyn (for it was he) scanned the bronzed 
face again with some show of interest. 

‘ You were a ship-fellow ?’ he asked. 

And Arnold, without remembering how much the 
admission implied, made answer with truth once 
more : 

‘ Yes — at least — that is to say — I sailed in the 
Saucy Sally,' 

The old peer smiled acquiescence, and waved him 
to follow to the door of the waiting-room. Arnold did 
so, somewhat amused at the condescending air of the 
new-made peer to his hereditary companion. In the 
House of Lords he couldn’t, somehow, altogether 
forget his traditions. 

‘Pass this man to the gallery,’ the old law lord said 
with a nod of command to the door-keeper. 

The door-keeper bowed low, and Arnold Willoughby 
followed him. 

The proceedings in the House were short and 
purely formal. The Committee, represented by one 
half-blind old gentleman, read their report of privilege 
in a mumbling tone ; but Arnold could see its decision 
was awaited with the utmost interest by his cousin 
Algy, who, as claimant to the seat, stood at the bar of 


56 


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the House awaiting judgment. The Committee found 
that Albert Ogilvie Eedburn, seventh Earl of Ax- 
minster, was actually dead; that his identity with the 
person who sailed in the Saucy Sally from Liverpool 
for Melbourne under the assumed name of Douglas 
Overton had been duly proved to their satisfaction; 
that the Saucy Sally had been lost, as alleged, in the 
Indian Ocean, and that all souls on board had really 
perished ; that amongst the persons so lost was Albert 
Ogilvie Eedburn, alias Douglas Overton, seventh Earl 
of Axminster ; that Algernon Loftus Eedburn, eldest 
son of the Honourable Algernon Eedburn, deceased, 
and grandson of the fifth Earl, was the heir to the 
peerage; and that this house admitted his claim of 
right, and humbly prayed Her Majesty to issue her 
gracious writ summoning him as a Peer of Parliament 
accordingly. 

Algernon Eedburn, below, smiled a smile of triumph. 
But Arnold Willoughby, in the gallery, felt a little 
shudder pass over him. It was no wonder, indeed. 
He had ceased to exist legally. He was no longer his 
own original . self, but in very deed a common sailor. 
He knew that the estates must follow the title ; from 
that day forth he was a beggar, a nameless nobody. 
Till the report was read, he might have stood forth at 
any moment and claimed his ancestral name and his 
ancestral acres. Now the die was cast. He felt that 
after he had once stood by as he had stood by that 
day and allowed himself to be solemnly adjudicated 
as dead, he could never again allow himself to be 
resurrected. He should have spoken then, or must 
for ever keep silent. It would be wrong of him, cruel 
of him, cowardly of him, unmanly of him, to let Algy 
and Algy’s wife take his place in the world, with his 


THE AXMINSTER PEERAGE 


157 


full knowledge and assent, and then come forward 
later to deprive them of their privilege. He was now 
nothing more than ‘ the late Lord Axminster.’ That 
at least was his past ; his future would be spent as 
mere Arnold Willoughby. 

Had Kathleen proved different, he hardly knew 
whether, at the last moment, he might not have 
turned suddenly round and refused so completely to 
burn his boats ; but as it was, he was glad of it. The 
tie to his old life, which laid him open to such cruel 
disillusions as Kathleen had provided for him, was 
now broken for ever ; henceforth he would be valued 
at his own worth alone by all and sundry. 

But no more of women ! If Arnold Willoughby 
had been a confirmed misogynist before he met Kath- 
leen Hesslegrave by accident at the Academy doors, 
he was a thousand times more so after this terrible 
reaction from his temporary backsliding into respect- 
able society. 

He went down into the corridor, and saw Algy 
surrounded by a whole group of younger peers, who 
were now strolling in for the afternoon’s business. 
They were warmly congratulating him upon having 
secured the doubtful privileges of which Arnold for his 
part had been so anxious to divest himself. Arnold 
was not afraid to pass quite near them. Use had 
accustomed him to the ordeal of scrutiny. For some 
years, he had passed by hundreds who once knew 
him, in London streets or Continental towns, and yet, 
with the solitary exception of the Hesslegraves (for he 
did not know the part borne in his recognition by the 
Valentines), not a soul had ever pierced the successful 
disguise with which he had surrounded himself. A 
few years before, the same men would have crowded 


58 


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just as eagerly round the seventh as round the eighth 
Earl ; and now, not a word of the last holder of the 
title ; nothing but congratulation for the man who 
had supplanted him, and who stood that moment, 
smiling and radiant, the centre of a little group of 
friendly acquaintances. 

As Arnold paused, half irresolute, near the doors of 
the House, a voice that he knew well called out 
suddenly : 

‘ Hullo, Axminster, there you are ! I’ve been looking 
for you everywhere.’ 

Arnold turned half round in surprise. What an 
unseasonable interruption ! How dreadful that at 
this moment somebody should have recognised him ! 
And from behind, too — that was the worst — for the 
speaker was invisible. Arnold hesitated whether or 
not to run away without answering him ; then, with a 
smile, he realized the true nature of his mistake. It’s 
so strange to hear another man called by the name 
that was once your own. But the voice was Canon 
Valentine’s, fresh back from Italy, and the ‘Axminster’ 
he was addressing was not Arnold Willoughby, but the 
new-made peer, his cousin Algy. Nevertheless, the 
incident made Arnold feel at once it was time to go. 
He was more afraid of Canon Valentine’s recognising 
him than of any other acquaintance ; for the Canon 
had known him so intimately as a boy, and used to 
speak to him so often about that instinctive trick of 
his — why, there ! as Arnold thought of it, he removed 
his hand quickly from the lock in which it was twined, 
and dodged behind a little group of gossiping peers in 
the neighbourhood just in time to escape the Canon’s 
scrutiny. But the Canon didn’t see him ; he was too 
busily engaged in shaking Algy’s hand — too full of his 


THE AXMINSTER PEERAGE 


59 


salutations to the rising sun to remember the setting 
one. 

Arnold strolled out somewhat saddened. If ever in 
his life he felt inclined to be cynical, it must at least 
be admitted he had much just then to make him so. 
It was all a sad picture of human fickleness. And then, 
the bitter thought that Kathleen had been doing just 
like all of these was enough to sour any man. Arnold 
turned to leave the House by the strangers’ entrance. 
In order to do so, he had to pass the door of the peers’ 
robing-room. As he went by it, a fat little old gentle- 
man emerged from the portal. It was Lord Helvellyn, 
who had passed him to the Strangers’ Gallery. But 
now the little man looked at him with a queer gleam 
of recollection. Then a puzzled expression came over 
his sallow face. 

‘ Look here,’ he said, turning suddenly to Arnold ; 
‘ I want one word with you. What was that you told 
me about having sailed with Lord Axminster in the 
Saucy Sally V 

Arnold scented the danger at once, but answered in 
haste : 

‘ It was true — quite true. I went out on her last 
voyage.’ 

‘ Nonsense, man,’ the little fat law lord replied, 
scanning his witness hard, as is the wont of barristers, 
‘ How dare you have the impudence to tell me so to 
my face, after hearing the evidence we summarized in 
our report ? It’s pure imposture. Douglas Overton 
or Lord Axminster made only one voyage on the Saucy 
Sally ; and in the course of that voyage she was lost 
with all hands. It was that that we went upon. If 
anybody had survived, we must have heard of him, of 
course, and have given judgment differently. How do 


i6o 


AT MARKET VALUE 


you get out of that, eh ? You’re an impostor, sir — an 
impostor !’ 

‘But I left the ship,’ Arnold began hurriedly ; he 
was going to say ‘ at Cape Town,’ when it was borne 
in upon him all at once that if he confessed that fact, 
he would be practically reopening the whole field of 
inquiry ; and with a crimson face he held his peace, 
most unwillingly. That was hard indeed, for nothing 
roused Arnold Willoughby’s indignation more than an 
imputation of untruthfulness. 

Lord Helvellyn smiled grimly. 

‘ Go away, sir,’ he cried with a gesture of honest 
contempt. ‘ You lied to me, and you know it. You’re 
an impudent scoundrel, that’s what you are — a most 
impudent scoundrel ; and if ever I see you loitering 
about this house again. I’ll give orders to the door- 
keeper to take you by the scruff of your neck and 
eject you forcibly.’ 

Arnold’s blood boiled hot. For a second he felt 
himself once more an aristocrat. Was he to be 
jostled and hustled like this, with insult and con- 
tumely, from his own hereditary chamber, by a new- 
fangled law lord? Next moment his wrath cooled, 
and he saw for himself the utter illogicality, the two- 
sided absurdity, of his own position. It was clearly 
untenable. The old law lord was right. He was not 
the Earl of Axminster. These precincts of Parliament 
were no place for him in future. He slunk down the 
steps like a whipped cur. ’Twas for the very last time. 
As he went, he shook off the dust from his feet meta- 
phorically. Whatever came now, he must never more 
be a Kedburn or an Axminster. He was quit of it 
once for all. He emerged into Parliament Street, 
more fixedly than ever, a plain Arnold Willoughby. 


IN A CATHEDRAL CITY i6i 

If Kathleen Hesslegrave wished to make herself a 
Countess, she must fix her hopes somewhere else, he 
felt sure, than on Membury Castle. For him, the sea, 
and no more of this fooling ! Life is real, life is 
earnest, and Arnold Willoughby meant to take it 
earnestly. 


CHAPTEK XV. 

IN A CATHEDKAL CITY. 

Weeks passed before Kathleen Hesslegrave recovered 
from the shock of that terrible disappointment. It 
shattered her nerves for the moment ; it left her 
heart-broken. It was not so much the blow to her 
love, though that was bad enough — Kathleen was 
strong of soul, and could bear up against a mere love- 
trouble ; it was the sense of being so completely and 
unjustly misunderstood ; it was the feeling that the 
man she had loved best in the world had gone away 
from her entirely misconceiving and misreading her 
character. At the risk of seeming unwomanly, Kath- 
leen would have followed him to the world’s end, if 
she could, not so much for ^love’s sake as to clear up 
that unendurable slight to her integrity. That any 
man, and above all Arnold Willoughby, should think 
her capable of planning a vile and deliberate plot to 
make herself a Countess, while pretending to be 
animated by the most disinterested motives, was a 
misfortune under which such a girl as Kathleen could 
not sit down quietly. It goaded her to action. 

But as time went on, it became every day clearer 
and clearer to her that Arnold Willoughby had once 

11 


i 62 


AT MARKET VALUE 


more disappeared into space, just as Lord Axminster 
had disappeared after the Blanche Middleton incident. 
It was utterly impossible for her even to begin trying 
to find him. Week after week she waited in misery 
and despair, growing every day more restless under 
such enforced inactivity, and eating her heart out with 
the sense of injustice. Not that she blamed Arnold 
Willoughby ; she understood him too well, and sym- 
pathized with him too deeply, not to forgive him all ; 
for tout savoir, c'est tout x>ardonner. He could hardly 
have drawn any other inference from Mrs. Hessle- 
grave’s plain words than the inference he actually 
drew ; and Kathleen admitted to herself that if she 
had really been what Arnold supposed her, she would 
have more than deserved the treatment he had 
accorded her. It was just that, indeed, that made 
the sting of the situation. She would have despised 
herself for being what she knew Arnold Willoughby 
couldn’t possibly help thinking her. 

Before long, however, many other things super- 
vened to take Kathleen’s mind for the present off 
Arnold Willoughby. Spring had set in over sea in 
England ‘ with its usual severity ’ ; and Mrs. Hessle- 
grave felt it was time to return from the balmy May 
of Italy to the chilly and gusty month which usurps 
the same name in our Northern climates. So they 
struck their tents northward. As soon as they 
returned, there were the exhibitions to see about, and 
the sale of Kathleen’s pictures and sketches to arrange 
for, and the annual trouble of Mr. Eeginald’s finances, 
with their normal deficit. Mr. Keginald, indeed, had 
been ‘ going it ’ that year with more than his accus- 
tomed vigour. He had been seeing a good deal 
through the winter of his friend Miss Florrie ; and 


IN A CATHEDRAL CITY 163 

though Miss Florrie, for her part, had not the slightest 
intention of ‘ chucking up her chances ’ by marrying 
Mr. Eeginald, she ‘ rather liked the boy ’ in a mild 
uncommercial fashion, and permitted him to present 
her with sundry small testimonials of his ardent 
affection in the shape of gloves and bouquets, the final 
honour of payment for which fell, necessarily of 
course, on poor Kathleen’s shoulders. For Miss 
Florrie was a young lady not wholly devoid of senti- 
ment ; she felt that to carry on a mild flirtation with 
Mr. Eeginald, whom she never meant to marry, as an 
affair of the heart, was a sort of sacrificial homage to 
the higher emotions — an apologetic recognition of 
those tender feelings which she considered it her duty 
for the most part sternly to stifle. The consequence 
was that while she never for a moment allowed Mr. 
Eeginald to suppose her liking for him was anything 
more than purely Platonic, she by no means dis- 
couraged his budding affection’s floral offerings, or 
refused to receive those dainty-hued six-and-a-halfs in 
best Parisian kid which Eeggie laid upon the shrine 
as an appropriate holocaust. 

So, when poor Kathleen returned to London, dis- 
tracted, and burning to discover Arnold Willoughby’s 
whereabouts, the very first thing to which she was 
compelled to turn her attention was the perennial 
and ever- deepening entanglement of Master Eeggie ’s 
budget. As usual in such cases, however, Eeggie was 
wholly unable to account arithmetically for the dis- 
appearance of such large sums of money ; he could 
but vaguely surmise with a fatuous smile that ‘ a jolly 
good lump of it ’ had gone in cab fares. 

Kathleen glanced up at him reproachfully : 

‘But I never take a cab myself, Eeggie,’ she ex- 


AT MARKET VALUE 


164 

claimed with a sigh, ‘ except in the evening, or to pay 
a call at some house entirely off the ’bus routes. For 
ordinary day journeys, you know very w^ell, I always 
take an omnibus.’ 

Eeggie’s lip curled profound contempt. 

‘ My dear girl,’ he replied with fraternal superiority, 
‘ I hope I shall never sink quite as low as an omnibus.’ 
(He was blandly unaware that he had sunk already a 
great many stages lower.) ‘ No self-respecting person 
ever looks at an omnibus nowadays. It may have 
been usual in your time ’ — Kathleen was five or six 
years older than her brother, which at his age seems 
an eternity — ‘ but nowadays I assure you nobody does 
it. A hansom’s the only thing, though I confess I 
don’t think any gentleman ought to rest content till 
he can make it a victoria. My ideal is in time to set 
up a victoria ; but how can a fellow do that on my 
paltry salary ?’ 

Poor Kathleen sighed. How, indeed ! That was 
the worst of Keggie ; he was so unpractical and incor- 
rigible. At the very moment when she was trying to 
impress upon him the enormity of owing money he 
couldn’t possibly pay, and coming down upon her 
scanty earnings to make good the deficiency, he would 
burst in upon her with this sort of talk about the im- 
possibility of stewing in the pit of a theatre, and the 
absolute necessity for every gentleman to have a stall 
of his own, and a flower in his button-hole, even 
though it devolved upon other people to pay for them. 
To say the truth, they had no common point of contact. 
Kathleen’s principle was that you had no right to con- 
tract debts if you had no means of paying them ; 
Eeggie’s principle was that you must live at all hazards 
‘ like a gentleman ’ — even though you allowed a 


IN A CATHEDRAL CITY 165 

woman to pay with her own work for the cost of the 
proceedings. 

As soon as Keggie’s affairs had been set compara- 
tively straight, and as many of his more pressing 
debts as he could be induced for the moment to 
acknowledge had been duly discharged by Kathleen’s 
aid, the poor girl set to work in real earnest to dis- 
cover, if possible, what had become of Arnold Wil- 
loughby. She didn’t want to see him — not just at 
present, at least, till this misunderstanding was cleared 
up, if cleared up it could ever be by her bare assertion. 
But she did want to know where he was, to write and 
explain to him, to tell him how deeply and how com- 
pletely he had misjudged her. It was all in vain, 
however. She had to eat her heart out with unful- 
filled desire. Go where she would, she could hear 
nothing at all of him. She dived into the recesses of 
East-End coffee-houses, sadly against her will — places 
where it seemed incredible to her that Arnold Wil- 
loughby should be found, and where, nevertheless, 
many sailors seemed to know him. ‘ Willoughby ? 
Ay, Willoughby. That’s the chap that used to make 
me hand him over my screw, as soon as it was paid, 
and send three parts of it home to my missis, and 
keep the rest for me, for baccy and such-like. Ay, he 
was a good sort, he was ; but it’s long sin’ I saw him. 
Drownded, mayhap, or left the sea or summat.’ That 
was all she could hear of Arnold in the seafaring 
quarter. It seemed quite natural to those hardy salts 
that a person of their acquaintance should disappear 
suddenly for a year or two from their ken, or even 
should drop out of existence altogether, without any- 
one’s missing him. ‘It’s like huntin’ for a needle in 
a bottle offhay, miss,’ one old sailor observed with a 


AT MARKET VALUE 


1 66 

friendly smile, ‘ to look for a seaman in the Port o’ 
London. Mayhap, when the sealers come back to 
Dundee, you might get some news o’ him ; for Wil- 
loughby he were always one as had an eye on the 
sealin’.’ With that slender hope Kathleen buoyed 
herself up for the present ; but her poor heart sank as 
she thought that during all these weeks Arnold must 
be going on thinking worse and ever worse of her, 
letting the wound rankle deep in that sensitive breast 
of his. 

One element of brightness alone there was in her 
life for the moment ; her art at least was being better 
and better appreciated. She sold her Academy 
picture for more than double what she had ever 
before received ; and no wonder, for she painted it in 
the thrilling ecstasy of first maiden passion. If it 
hadn’t been for this rise in her prices, indeed, she 
didn’t know how she could have met Mr. Eeginald’s 
demands ; and Mr. Reginald himself, quick to observe 
where a fresh chance opened, immediately discounted 
Kathleen’s betterment in market value by incurring 
several new debts with tailor and tobacconist on the 
strength of his sister’s increased ability to pay them 
in future. 

As soon as the London season was over, however, 
the Hesslegraves received an invitation to go down to 
Norchester on a visit to the Valentines. Mrs. Hessle- 
grave was highly pleased with this invitation. ‘ Such 
a good place to be seen, you know, dear, the Valen- 
tines ; and a Cathedral town, too ! The Bishop and 
Canons are so likely to buy ; and even if they don’t, 
one feels one’s associating with ladies and gentlemen.’ 
Poor Kathleen shrank from it, indeed ; for was it not 
Canon Valentine who indirectly and unintentionally 


IN A CATHEDRAL CITY 


167 


had brought about all her troubles by incautiously 
letting out the secret of Arnold Willoughby’s person- 
ality ? But she went, for all that ; for it was her way 
to sacrifice herself. Many good women have learnt 
that lesson only too well, I fear, and would be all the 
better for an inkling of the opposite one, that self- 
development is a duty almost as real and as imperative 
as self-sacrifice. 

So down to Norchester she went. She had no 
need now to caution Mrs. Hesslegrave against open- 
ing her mouth again about the Axminster episode; 
for the good lady, having once hopelessly compromised 
herself on that mysterious subject, was so terrified at 
the result that she dared not even broach it afresh to 
Kathleen. Since the day of Arnold Willoughby’s dis- 
appearance, indeed, mother and daughter had held 
their peace to one another on the matter ; and that 
very silence overawed Mrs. Hesslegrave, who knew 
from it how deeply Kathleen’s heart had been 
w^ounded. As for the Canon, now Algy had obtained 
the peerage, it was more than ever his cue to avoid 
any allusion to the sailor he had so rashly recognised 
at Venice. He was convinced in his own mind by 
this time that Bertie Kedburn must have committed 
some crime, the consequences of which he was 
endeavouring to shirk by shuffling off his personality ; 
and if that attempt redounded to Algy’s advantage, it 
was certainly very far from the Canon’s wish to 
interfere in any way with the fugitive’s anonymity. 
So he, too, held his peace without a hint or a word. 
He was willing to let the hasty exclamation wrung 
from him on the spur of the moment at Venice be for- 
gotten, if possible, by all who heard it. 

On their first day at Norchester, Kathleen went 


AT MARKET VALUE 


1 68 

down with their host to the Cathedral. There’s some- 
thing very charming and sweet and grave about our 
English cathedrals, even after the gorgeous churches 
of Italy ; and Kathleen admired immensely the beauti- 
ful green close, the old-world calm, the meditative 
view from the Canon’s windows upon the palace 
gardens. It was all so still, so demure, so peaceful, 
so English. As they walked round the building 
towards the great east window, the Canon was 
apologetic about his hasty flight from Venice. 

‘ I went away suddenly, I know,’ he said ; ‘ but, then, 
you must admit. Miss Hesslegrave, it’s a most in- 
sanitary town. Such smells ! Such filth ! It just 
reeks with typhoid.’ 

‘Well, I allow the perfumes,’ Kathleen answered, 
bridling up in defence of her beloved Venice ; ‘ but as 
to the typhoid, I have my doubts. The sea seems to 
purify it. Do you know. Canon Valentine, I’ve spent 
five winters on end in Venice, and I’ve never had a 
personal friend ill with fever ; while in England I’ve 
had dozens. It isn’t always the places that look the 
dirtiest, which turn out in the long-run to be really 
most insanitary. And if it comes to that, what could 
possibly be worse than those slums we passed on our 
way out of the close, near the pointed archway, where 
you cross the river ?’ 

The Canon bristled up in turn. This was really 
most annoying. As a matter of fact, those particular 
slums were the property of the Dean and Chapter of 
Norchester, and complaints had been going about in 
the local paper that they were no wholesomer than 
they ought to be; which made it, of course, all the 
more intolerable that they should attract the attention 
of a complete stranger. 


IN A CATHEDRAL CITY 


169 


‘ Not at all,’ he answered testily. * Those are very 
good cottages — very good cottages indeed. I can see 
nothing wrong with them. You can’t expect to house 
working-people in the Bishop’s Palace, and to give 
them port-wine and venison every day ad libitum. 
But as working-men’s houses, they’re very good 
houses ; and I wouldn’t mind living in one of them 
myself — if I were a working-man,’ the Canon added 
in an after-thought, ‘ and had been brought up to the 
ways of them.’ 

Kathleen said no more, for she saw the Canon was 
annoyed ; and she knew when to be silent. But that 
morning at lunch the Canon enlarged greatly upon 
the health and cleanliness of Norchester in general, 
and the Cathedral close and property in particular. 
It was wholesomeness itself ; the last word of sanita- 
tion. Nobody ever got ill there ; nobody ever died ; 
and he had never even heard of a case of typhoid. 

‘ Except old Grimes, dear,’ Mrs. Valentine interposed 
incautiously. 

The Canon crushed her with a glance. 

‘Old Grimes,’ he said angrily, ‘brought the seeds 
of it with him from a visit to Bath — which I don’t 
consider at all so well sanitated as Norchester ; and I 
told the Dean so at our diocesan synod. But not 
another case — not a case can I remember. — No, 
Amelia, it’s no use ; I know what you’re going to say. 
Mrs. Wheeler’s fever came straight from London, 
which, w^e all of us know, is a perfect pest-hole ; and 
as to poor old Canon Brooks, he contracted it in Italy. 
The precentor ! No, no ! Goodness gracious ! has it 
come to this, then ? — that not only do vile agitators 
print these things openly in penny papers for our 
servants to read^ but even our own wives must go 


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throwing dirt in the faces of the Cathedral Chapter ! 
I tell you, Amelia, the town’s as clean as a new pin ; 
and the property of the close is a model of sanita- 
tion.’ 

That evening, however, by some strange mischance, 
the Canon himself complained of headache. Next 
morning he was worse, and they sent for the doctor. 
The doctor looked grave. 

‘ I’ve been expecting this sooner or later,’ he said, 

‘ if something wasn’t done about those slums by the 
river. I’m afraid, Mrs. Valentine, it would be only 
false kindness to conceal the truth from you. The 
Canon shows undoubted symptoms of typhoid.’ 

It was quite true. He had caught it three weeks 
earlier on a visit of inspection to Close Wynd, the 
slum by the river, where he had duly pronounced the 
cottages on the Cathedral property ‘ perfectly fit for 
human habitation.’ And now, out of his own mouth, 
had nature convicted him. For, in his eagerness to 
prove that all was for the best, in the best of all 
possible Cathedral towns, for the tenants of the 
Chapter, he had asked for and tossed off a glass of 
the tainted water to which the borough sanitary 
inspector was calling his attention. 

‘ Perfectly pure and good,’ he said, in his testy way. 
‘ Never tasted better water in my life, I assure you. 
What the people want to complain about nowadays 
fairly passes my comprehension.’ 

And he went his way rejoicing. But for twenty-one 
days those insidious little microbes that he swallowed 
so carelessly lay maturing their colony in the Canon’s 
doomed body. At the end of that time they swarmed 
and developed themselves ; and even the Canon him- 
self knew in his own heart, unspoken, that it was the 


IN A CATHEDRAL CITY 171 

Close Wynd water that had given him typhoid fever. 
When he made his will, he did not forget it ; and the 
lawyer who opened it eight days later found that in 
that hasty sheet, dictated from his death-bed, the 
Canon had remembered to leave two hundred pounds 
for the improvement of the sanitary condition of the 
* perfect ’ cottages which had proved his destruc- 
tion. 

One day later Mrs. Valentine succumbed. She, too, 
had drunk the poisonous water, ‘ for example’s sake, 
Amelia,’ her husband had said to her ; and she, too, 
died after a short attack. It was a most virulent type 
of the disease, the doctor said — the type that comes of 
long sanitary neglect and wholesale pollution. But 
that was not all. These things seldom stop short with 
the original culprits. Mrs. Hesslegrave was seized, 
too, after nursing her two old friends through their 
fatal illness ; and, being weak and ill beforehand with 
regret and remorse for the part she had played in 
driving away the Earl whom Kathleen wanted to 
marry (for that was the way in which Mrs. Hessle- 
grave thought of it to the very end), she sank rapidly 
under the strain, and died within a fortnight of the 
two Valentines. So Kathleen found herself practically 
alone in the world, and with Keginald on her hands, 
except so far as his ‘ paltry salary ’ would enable 
a gentleman of so much social pretension to keep 
himself in the barest necessaries at the florist’s and 
the glover’s. 

In the midst of her real grief for a mother she had 
loved and watched over tenderly, it did not strike 
Kathleen at the time that by these three deaths, 
following one another in such rapid succession, the 
only three other depositaries of Arnold Willoughby’s 


172 


AT MARKET VALUE 


secret had been removed at one blow, and that she 
herself remained now the sole person on earth who 
could solve the Axminster mystery. But it occurred 
to her later on, when the right time came, and when 
she saw what must be done about Arnold Willoughby’s 
future. 


CHAPTEE XVI. 

WITHOUT SECURITY. 

As soon as the funeral was over, Kathleen returned 
to town to prove her mother’s will. Mrs. Hesslegrave 
had little to leave, and her pension died with her. 
Her own small property, a trifle scarcely worth con- 
sidering, she divided in equal shares between Kath- 
leen and Eeginald. But Mr. Eeginald was not a little 
surprised at this equitable arrangement. 

‘ Of course, I don’t grumble,’ he said magnanimously 
to his sister, as she turned her pale face up to him 
from her newly-made mourning ; ‘ but it’s beastly un- 
fair ; that’s what I call it : and I confess it isn’t quite 
what I’d have expected from the mater.’ 

Kathleen stared at him with tears in her eyes. . It 
shocked her inexpressibly to hear him speak of their 
mother at such a moment with so little feeling. 

‘Unfair!’ she exclaimed, taken aback; ‘why, how 
do you make that out, Eeggie ? We’re both to share 
alike. I don’t quite see myself how anything could 
well be made very much fairer !’ 

But Eeggie plumed himself on the sense of what 
Aristotle describes as ‘ distributive justice.’ 

‘ I don’t at all agree with you,’ he answered with 


WITHOUT SECURITY 


173 


vigour, digging his hands into his trousers-pockets 
doggedly. ‘ I’m a man ; you’re a woman. That 
makes all the difference. A man’s needs in life are far 
greater than a woman’s. He has society to think of. 
A woman can live upon anything, her wants are 
so few : a man requires much more — cigars, cabs, 
theatres, an occasional outing ; a Sunday up the river ; 
a box at the opera.’ 

In which chivalrous theory of the relations of the 
sexes, Mr. Eeginald Hesslegrave is kept in counten- 
ance by not a few of his kind in London and else- 
where. 

‘ I don’t see why a man should have all those things 
any more than a woman — if he can’t afford them,’ 
Kathleen answered with more spirit than she was 
aware she possessed. ‘ Because so many women are 
content to scrape and slave for the sake of the men of 
their families, I don’t see that that entitles the men 
to suppose every woman is bound to do it for them. 
Why should you be any better entitled to a box at the 
opera, if it comes to that, than I am ?’ 

‘ Oh, well, if you’ve no sense of family dignity,’ 
Keggie interjected obliquely, taking the enemy by a 
flank movement at the weakest point, ‘ and would like 
to see your brother sit stewing in the pit among a 
promiscuous pack of howling cads, or wearing a coat 
that would disgrace an office-boy, why, of course 
there’s no answering you. It’s wasting words to 
argue. I was taking it for granted you had still some 
sense left of sisterly affection, and some decent pride 
in your relations’ position. But I suppose you’d like 
to see me sweeping a crossing. Besides,’ he went on 
after a brief pause, ‘ you’ve your painting to fall back 
upon. You can earn money at that. It’s a jolly 


174 


AT MARKET VALUE 


good profession. The mater ought to have considered 
the differences in our positions, and have “ governed 
herself accordingly,” as we say in the City.’ 

‘But you have your salary!’ Kathleen exclaimed, 
distressed to hear him question so lightly their 
mother’s sense of justice ; for, like most good women, 
she was more loyal to her mother than her mother (to 
say the truth) had ever deserved of her. ‘ That’s 
something fixed and certain; you can always count 
upon it ; while my work’s precarious : I may happen 
to sell, or I may happen to make a failure. And 
then, too, you’re a man, and what’s the use of being a 
man, I should like to know — a superior being — a lord 
of creation — if you can’t be trusted to earn your own 
livelihood better than a woman could ? If there’s to 
be a difference at all, surely it’s the women, the 
weaker of the two, and the less able on the average to 
take care of themselves, who ought to receive the 
most ! A man can work for his living ; a woman can’t 
so well ; more doors are closed to her ; and I think all 
that ought to be taken into consideration in arranging 
inheritances as between sons and daughters.’ 

'My salary!’ Mr. Eeginald repeated, with supreme 
scorn in his voice. ‘ My paltry salary ! That beg- 
garly sum ! How can you expect a man brought up 
with the tastes and feelings of a gentleman to live 
upon a miserable pittance like that ? You don’t 
understand these things, that’s where it is ; you’re 
not in society. You go and paint half your time at 
some place or other in Italy ’ — Mr. Eeginald had a 
profound and impartial contempt for all foreign 
countries — ‘ and you don’t understand the needs and 
requirements of a man about town. They don’t come 
home to you. Why, neckties alone — there’s an item 


WITHOUT SECURITY 


175 


for you ! I’m distracted with the difficulty of pro- 
viding good neckties. And flowers, again ! How can 
one do without flowers ? I don’t suppose I should 
ever have a chance of rising to be an Authorized, if 
J ones w^ere to see me without a gardenia in my 
buttonhole !’ 

‘ Eising to be a what ?’ Kathleen inquired, looking 
puzzled. 

‘ An Authorized,’ Eeggie replied with a superior 
smile. ‘ Oh no ; I didn’t expect you to understand 
what I meant. It’s a beastly vulgar slang, the slang 
of the Stock Exchange : but what can you expect ? 
If a man’s put by his people into a hole of a stock- 
broker’s office, instead of into a cavalry regiment, 
where his appearance and manners entitle him to be 
— why, of course, he must pick up the vile lingo of the 
disgusting hole he’s been stuck in. An Authorized is 
a clerk, a superior clerk, a sort of Trusted Servant, 
who pays a special subscription to the House, and is 
entitled to act on his employer’s account exactly like a 
broker. He gets a jolly good screw, an Authorized 
does in a good firm. I hope in time, by my merits, 
to rise to be an Authorized. I’ll make things hop 
then, I can tell you, Kitty : Threadneedle Street won’t 
know me !’ 

‘ And who’s Jones ?’ Kathleen inquired once more, 
never having heard till that moment of this mysterious 
personage. 

‘ Why, our senior partner, of course,’ Eeggie 
answered with gusto. 

‘ But I thought he was a Greek, with a very long 
name,’ Kathleen answered, much puzzled. 

‘ So he is,’ Eeggie replied. ‘ His full name’s 
loannipulides. Now, no Christian body can be 


176 


AT MARKET VALUE 


expected to say ‘‘Mr. loannipulides ” fifty times over 
in the course of a working day — which is only eight 
hours — so we call him Jones for short. It’s every bit 
as effective, and a deal less expensive on the vocal 
organs.’ 

‘ I see,’ Kathleen replied, and was silent for a 
moment. 

‘However,’ Mr. Eeggie continued, returning to the 
charge, unshattered, ‘ it doesn’t matter how the poor 
mater left the money, don’t you know, one way or the 
other : that’s neither here nor there. The long and 
the short of it is, whether you like it or whether you 
lump it, you’ll have to fork over your share to me as 
soon as we’ve got clear through with this beastly 
probate business ; for I want the tin, and, to put it 
fair and square, I can’t do without it.’ 

Kathleen stood aghast at the proposal. 

‘What? all dear mother left me!’ she cried, 
thunderstruck. ‘ You expect me to give it up to you ?’ 

Mr. Eeginald assumed a severely logical expression 
of face. 

‘ I don’t expect anything,’ he replied with conscious 
moderation. ‘ In this world, I know, one’s exposed 
to perpetual disappointment. People are so selfish, 
that’s the fact : they never think at all of other 
people’s situations. They won’t put themselves in 
their shoes. All I say is this : I expect nothing ; but 
if you want to see your brother hauled up in the 
Bankruptcy Court — liabilities, seven hundred and fifty 
odd : assets, four-and-tuppence — “ the bankrupt was 
severely reprimanded by the learned Commissioner, 
and did not receive his discharge ” — why, of course, 
you’re quite at liberty to look on and enjoy that 
charming spectacle. It don’t matter to me. I’d soon 


WITHOUT SECURITY 


177 


get used to it. Though I would have thought mere 
family affection, to say nothing of family pride — for I 
perceive you haven’t got any ’ 

‘But, Eeggie,’ Kathleen cried, horror-struck, ‘you 
don’t mean to tell me that, with your income, you’re 
more than seven hundred pounds in debt ? It isn’t 
really true, is it ?’ 

Eeggie gazed at her contemptuously. 

‘What a storm in a teapot!’ he answered with 
gentlemanly scorn. ‘ Maybe six hundred and fifty. 
Maybe eight hundred. A gentleman doesn’t generally 
trouble himself about the details of these matters. 
He buys what he can’t possibly do without ; and he 
pays for it by instalments from time to time as 
occasion offers. His tailor says to him : “ Would it be 
perfectly convenient to you, sir, to let me have a few 
pounds on account within the next six weeks or so ? — 
for, if so, I should be glad of it. I’m sorry to trouble 
you, sir ; but, you see, your little bill has been running 
on so long!” — and he rubs his hands apologetically. 
And then you say to him in a careless way : “ Well, 
no, Saunders, it wouldn’t. I don’t happen to have any 
spare cash in hand to waste on paying bills just at 
the present moment — Ascot coming on, don’t you 
know, and all that sort of thing ; but I’ll tell you what 
I’ll do for you ; you can make me a couple more suits, 
tweed dittoes, and knickerbockers.” That’s the way 
to manage tradesmen ; they don’t mind about money, 
as long as they get your custom though, as a con- 
sequence, of course, one doesn’t always remember 
exactly what one owes within a hundred and fifty 
pounds or so.’ 

‘ Eeggie,’ Kathleen said firmly, ‘ I call it wicked of 
you — wicked !’ 


12 


178 


AT MARKET VALUE 


‘ So one’s people generally remark,’ Eeggie an- 
swered with perfect unconcern. ‘ I was talking over 
this subject with Charlie Owen yesterday, and he told 
me his governor made precisely the same remark to 
him last time he struck for an increased allowance. 
It’s astonishing how little originality there is in human 
beings !’ 

It was useless being angry with him ; so Kathleen 
began again. 

‘ Now, Eeggie,’ she said in a serious voice, ‘I’m not 
going to make you a present this time of anything. 
You must find out what you owe, and show me the 
bills ; and then perhaps I may be disposed to lend you 
what you need — on note of hand, you understand — 
till you’re rich enough to pay me.’ 

‘ Oh dear yes, I understand,’ Eeggie answered with 
alacrity. ‘ I understand down to the ground. Notes 
of hand are my spdcialite. Almost all this that I want 
to clear off just now is on note of hand, Kitty. Fact 
is, I’m in a hole; and it’s no good denying it. Of 
course, if you choose to leave your brother in a hole, 
like Jacob’s sons, for the Midianites or somebody to 
pull him out and sell him up, you’re perfectly at 
liberty, I admit, to do it. But a hole I’m in ; and it’s 
notes of hand have put me there. You see, I ex- 
pected to come into whatever private property the 
poor mater had ; and I expected it to turn out a good 
deal more than it actually has done. I’m a victim of 
misapprehension. I flew a kite or two, making ’em 
payable within six months — of — well, you know, what 
they call a post-obit. And now I find I can’t meet ’em, 
which is awkward — very; and unless the members 
of my family come forward and help me, I suppose 
I must go into the court — and lose my situation.’ 


WITHOUT SECURITY 


179 


That was a good trump-card, and Mr. Eeginald 
knew it. 

‘ But you solemnly declared to me, only six months 
since, you hadn’t a debt in the world except the ones 
I paid for you !’ Kathleen exclaimed reproachfully. 
‘ Why didn’t you tell me then the exact amount of 
your indebtedness ?’ 

‘ No fellow ever does tell his people the exact amount 
of his indebtedness,’ Eeggie answered with airy 
candour. ‘ It’s a trait of human nature.’ Which was 
no doubt quite true, but not particularly consolatory to 
Kathleen in the present emergency. 

‘ It’s very, very wrong of you, Eeggie,’ she said 
again, trying to be properly stern with him. 

‘ Oh, that’s all rot !’ Eeggie answered with his usual 
frankness. ‘It’s no good pitching into any chap 
because he behaves exactly the same as every other 
chap does. I told you there’s precious little origin- 
ality in human nature. I’ve gone on as all other 
young men go on in a decent position ; and you’ve 
gone on in the ordinary way common to their people ; 
so now suppose we drop it all, and get forward with 
the business.’ 

And get forward with the business they did accord- 
ingly. After a great many subterfuges and petty 
attempts at deception, Eeggie was at last induced to 
furnish Kathleen, to the best of his ability, with a 
tolerably complete list of his various creditors and the 
amounts he owed them. Every item, he explained in 
detail, was ‘ simply unavoidable.’ These gloves, for 
example, were necessaries — most undoubted neces- 
saries ; any judge would pass them, for a fellow in his 
position. Those flowers were naturally part of his 
costume ; hang it all ! a man must dress. If people 


i8o 


AT MARKET VALUE 


appeared in public insufficiently clad, why, as a matter 
of common morals, the police interfered with them. 
As for that fan, put down at fifty shillings, Florrie 
Clarke had bought that one evening when she was out 
with him ; and he said to the shopman, ‘ Put it down 
to me !’ — as also with the bouquets, the brooch, and 
the earrings. 

‘ But what could I do ?’ he pleaded plaintively. 
‘ She said she wanted them. I was a man, don’t you 
see. I couldn’t stand by and let a woman pay for 
them.’ 

* It strikes me you’re going to let a woman pay for 
them now,’ Kathleen put in with just severity. 

Eeggie smiled his graceful smile, and, as he did so, 
Kathleen couldn’t help admitting that, after all, he 
was a very good-looking boy, Eeggie. 

‘Ah, but that’s quite a different matter,’ he answered, 
laying one brotherly hand on her shoulder, with a 
caressing glance. ‘ You see, you’re my sister !’ 

And what a creature a woman is ! How inconsis- 
tent ! How placable ! That one fraternal act made 
Kathleen overlook all Eeggie’ s misdeeds at once and 
for ever. I regret to have to chronicle it : but she 
stooped down and kissed him. The kiss settled the 
question. 

Eeggie swept the field in triumph. Before he left 
Kathleen’s rooms that afternoon he had extracted a 
promise that on his producing his bills, and stating 
the precise amounts of his funded debts in the way of 
notes of hand with his various creditors, he should 
receive a sufficient sum in ready cash to settle in full 
and begin life over again. He meant to turn over a 
new leaf, he said, cheering up at the prospect. And 
so he did — in the ledger. A clean sweep of all his 


WITHOUT SECURITY 


i8i 


bills would allow him to start afresh with increased 
credit — since his creditors would now conclude he had 
come into money. Indeed, he instantly formed, in 
his own imaginative mind, a splendid scheme for 
inviting Florrie and her mamma down to Eichmond 
on a drag, with Charlie Owen to , assist, and a few 
other good fellows to help drink the dry Monopole. 
What’s the good of getting your people to pay off 
all you owe, if nobody but the beastly tradesmen 
is to derive any benefit from their generous be- 
haviour ? 

So convinced was Mr. Keginald of this truth, in- 
deed, and so firmly determined not to let Kathleen’s 
kindness be wasted for nothing, that on his way down 
town again from his sister’s rooms he turned casually 
into his tobacconist’s in passing. 

‘I say, Morton,’ he observed in an easy tone, ‘will 
you just let me have your little bill to-night ? I’m 
thinking of paying it.’ 

‘ Oh, certainly, sir,’ the subservient tobacconist 
answered, with an oily smile, wondering mutely to 
himself whether this was a dodge to obtain fresh 
credit. 

Keggie read the thought in his eye, and gave a nod 
of dissent, to correct the misapprehension before it 
went any further. 

‘ No, it ain’t that this time, Morton,’ he said briskly, 
with charming sociality. ‘ No larks, I promise you ! 
I’m on the pay just now; come into a little oof, and 
arranged with my people.’ (That impersonal form 
sounds so much more manly, and so much more 
chivalrous, than if one were to say outright, ‘my 
sister!’) ‘But I want some weeds, too, now I come 
to think of it, so you may send me round a couple of 


i 82 


AT MARKET VALUE 


boxes of those old Porto Eicos. But, if you like, you 
needn’t deliver them till after the bill’s paid. Only,’ 
he added, looking his purveyor very straight in the 
face with a furtive yet searching glance, ‘ I’d like you 
to put them down on the bill, don’t you know ; and, 
if it’s all the same to you. I’d like you to antedate 
them — say last February— or else I expect my people 
won’t pay, and will cut up rusty.’ 

The tobacconist smiled a meaning smile. He was 
well acquainted long since with such threadbare little 
ruses, which, after the fashion of gentlemen doing a 
risky trade with young men about town, he condoned 
as in the end very good for business. 

‘ All right, sir,’ he answered, with a nod ; ‘ I quite 
understand. They shall be entered as you wish. We 
deal as between men. And just to show you, sir, that 
I trust you down to the ground, and have perfect 
confidence in your honour as a gentleman — there need 
be no trouble about waiting for payment; I’ll send 
the cigars up to your rooms this evening. Will you 
take a weed now, sir ? I can offer you a really very 
nice Havana.’ 

Eeggie was so delighted with the encouraging result 
of this first attempt, that he ventured to go a single 
step further in the same direction. It’s convenient, 
don’t you know, for a gentleman to have a little spare 
cash in hand for emergencies like the projected visit 
to Eichmond. 

‘ And look here, Morton,’ he went on^ evasively, 

‘ ivoiild you mind just doing me a very small favour ? 
I’m in want of ready cash ; no rhino in hand : but my 
people, I’m proud to say, are behaving like bricks. 
They’re paying up everything. They’ll settle anything 
in reason I bring in just now as part of my embarrass- 


WITHOUT SECURITY 


183 

ments. They’re prepared for a lump of it. Could you 
make it convenient just to lend me a mere trifle of 
twenty-flve quid for the immediate present? A nominal 
loan, don’t you know, not to take effect till I’ve paid 
my debts— but antedate the I 0 U, say, from last 
December or January? It’d give me a little ready 
money for current expenses, don’t you see, which is 
really an element “making for virtue,” as Charlie 
Owen says, because it prevents one from getting 
into new debt the very day one’s out of the old 
one !’ 

Morton hummed and hawed ; to antedate the I 0 U 
was a felonious act, he rather fancied ; but in the end 
he gave way, and the net result of Mr. Eeginald’s day 
was finally this : that he had induced poor Kathleen, 
out of the slender patrimony which was all she had 
for certain to count upon in the world, to pay off his 
debts for him ; and that he now found himself with 
twenty-five pounds of her money in pocket, with which 
to begin a fresh campaign of silly extravagance. But 
if you think these proceedings gave Mr. Keginald 
Hesslegrave a single qualm of conscience, you very 
much misunderstand that young gentleman’s character. 

On the contrary, meeting Charlie Owen on the way 
down the Strand, he begged that like-minded soul to 
partake of dinner with him forthwith at a first-class 
restaurant, triumphantly confided to him in the course 
of the meal, without extenuating aught or setting down 
aught in malice, the whole of these two dialogues, and 
finally extended to him a cordial invitation to share a 
boat up the river with him and the Clarkes, some day 
very soon, out of the remainder of poor Kitty’s plun- 
dered money. 


AT MARKET VALUE 


184 


CHAPTEK XVII. 

THE HEART OF THE DECOY DUCK. 

It was about those same days that the brand-new 
Lord Axminster, strolling down the Eow one afternoon 
arm in arm with his impecunious friend Captain 
Bourchier, nodded a little familiarly to a very pretty 
girl on a neat chestnut mare, accompanied by a groom 
of the starchiest respectability. Lord Axminster’s 
salute was too easy-going, indeed, to be described as a 
bow ; it resembled rather the half-playful bob with 
which one touches one’s hat to some man acquaint- 
ance. But the pretty girl considered a recognition, no 
matter how scanty, from a man in Lord Axminster’s 
position, too important a matter to be casually thrown 
away ; and reining in her mount, she drew near to the 
rails, and exclaimed in a saucy yet sleepy voice : 

‘ Well, how goes it this morning ?’ 

‘ Oh, all right,’ Lord Axminster answered in a non- 
chalant tone.. ‘ Are you going to the Graham Pringles’ 
hop this evening ?’ 

' I don’t think so,’ the pretty girl responded with a 
careless smile. ‘ Too hot, you know, for dancing.’ 
Which was a graceful way of covering the unacknow- 
ledged truth that she had not in point of fact received 
an invitation. 

Lord Axminster asked a few more of the usual use- 
less society questions, and then stifled a yawn. The 
pretty girl stroked her mare’s glossy neck, and with 
an easy nod went on her way again, rejoicing in the 
consciousness that she had attracted the attention of 
the loungers by the rails as the acquaintance of a 


THE HEART OF THE DECOY DUCK 185 

genuine nobleman. As soon as she had gone, Captain 
Bourchier turned to his friend. 

‘ I say, Axminster,’ he observed with a tinge of 
querulousness in his voice, ‘ you might have introduced 
me. I call it beastly mean of a man to keep all his 
good things to himself like that. Who is the young 
woman ? She’s confoundedly good-looking.’ 

‘ Yes, she is a nice little thing,’ Axminster admitted, 
half grudgingly. ‘ Nothing in her, of course, and a 
kind of sleepy Venus ; but distinctly nice-looking, if 
you care for them that way. A trifle vulgar, though ; 
and more than a trifle silly. But she’s good enough 
for a trip up the river, don’t you know. The sort of 
girl one can endure from eighteen to eight-and-twenty.’ 

‘Who is she?’ Captain Bourchier asked, looking 
after her with obvious interest. 

‘ Who is she ? Ah, there you come to the point. 
Well, that’s just it ; who is she ? Why, Spider 
Clarke’s daughter. You’ve heard of her — the Decoy 
Duck.’ 

Captain Bourchier pursed his lips. The news evi- 
dently interested him. 

‘ So that’s the Decoy Duck !’ he repeated slowly 
with a broadening smile. ‘ So that’s Spider Clarke’s 
Decoy Duck ! Well, I don’t wonder she serves her 
purpose. She’s as personable a girl as I’ve seen for 
a twelvemonth.’ 

‘ She is pretty,’ Lord Axminster admitted in the 
same grudging fashion. 

‘ Any brothers ?’ Captain Bourchier asked, as though 
the question were one of not the slightest importance. 

Lord Axminster smiled. 

‘ Ah, there you go straight to the point,’ he an- 
swered, ‘ like a good man of business ! That’s just it ; 


AT MARKET VALUE 


1 86 

no brothers. She’s the only child of her father, and 
he’s a money-lender. I admire you, Bourchier, for 
the frank and straightforward way you put your finger 
on the core of whatever subject you deal with. No 
beating about the bush or unnecessary sentimentality 
about you, dear boy ! She has no brothers ; she 
represents the entire reversionary interest, at fourteen 
per cent., in old Spider Clarke’s money.’ 

Captain Bourchier assumed at once an apologetic 
air. 

‘Well, you see,’ he said candidly, ‘if one’s looking 
out for tin, it’s such a great point to find the tin com- 
bined with a young woman who isn’t wholly and 
entirely distasteful to one. I don’t go in for senti- 
ment, as you justly observe ; but, hang it all ! I don’t 
want to go and fling myself away upon the very first 
young woman that ever turns up with a few thousands 
to her name, irrespective of the question whether she’s 
one-eyed or humpbacked, a woolly-haired nigger or 
a candidate for a lunatic asylum. Now, this girl’s 
good-looking ; she’s straight and w^ell made ; and I 
suppose she has the oof ; so, if one’s going to give up 
one’s freedom for a woman at all, I should say the 
Decoy Duck was well worth inquiring about.’ 

‘ Very possibly,’ Lord Axminster replied, as one who 
dismisses an uninteresting subject. 

‘ Well, has she the dibs ? That’s the question,’ 
Captain Bourchier continued, returning to the charge 
undismayed, as becomes a cavalry officer. 

‘ Spider Clarke is rich, I suppose,’ Lord Axminster 
answered with a little irritability. ‘ He ought to be, 
I know. He’s had enough out of me, anyhow. I’m 
one of his flies. He did all those bills for me, before 
anybody believed my cousin Bertie was really dead ; 


THE HEART OF THE DECOY DUCK 


187 


and as it was very speculative business, of course he 
did them at a heavy discount. He feathered his nest 
from me. His kites must have swallowed up five 
years at least of the Membury rent-roll, I should 
think, before he was “ through with it,” as that 
American girl says. I know he’s left me pretty well 
cleaned out. And Florrie will have it all, I suppose. 
The girl’s name is Florrie.’ 

‘ Do you think Lady Axminster would ask me to 
meet her ?’ Captain Bourchier inquired tentatively. 

The new peer raised his eyebrows. 

‘ I’m sure I don’t know,’ he replied with a doubtful 
air, like one who could hardly answer for Lady Ax- 
minster’s conduct. ‘ They are not exactly the sort of 
people my wife cares to ask — not even before we’d 
got things set straight with them financially. Her 
acquaintance with Miss Florrie and Miss Florrie’ s 
mamma was always of the most formal and perfunc- 
tory description. Besides, if you want to know the 
girl, there’s no need to approach her as if she were a 
Duchess. It’s easy enough for anybody with a stiver 
to his name to pick up Florrie Clarke’s acquaintance.’ 

‘Oh yes, of course; I can see that for myself,’ 
Captain Bourchier went on with the same cynical can- 
dour. ‘ It’s plain enough to anyone she’s the sort of 
young lady who’s directly approachable from all quar- 
ters. But that’s not what I want, don’t you see ? I 
want to be introduced to her, fair and square, in the 
society way, and to judge for myself whether or not 
she’ll do for me. If she does do, then I shall have 
put things from the first upon a proper basis, so that 
her father and mother will understand at once in 
what spirit I approach her. Hang it all, you know, 
Axminster, when a man thinks it’s on the cards he 


AT MARKET VALUE 


1 88 

may possibly marry a girl, why, respect for , the lady 
who may in the end become his wife makes him desire 
to conduct all his relations with her, from the begin- 
ning, decently and in order.’ 

Lord Axminster’s lips curled. 

‘ I appreciate the delicacy of your feelings, my dear 
boy,’ he answered, with a faint touch of irony ; ‘ and 
if Ethel doesn’t mind, you shall meet the girl at 
dinner.’ 

It was a proud evening indeed for Mrs. Clarke and 
Florrie when first they dined at Lady Axminster’s. 
To be sure, their hostess put up her tortoise-shell eye- 
glasses more than once during the course of the 
dinner, and surveyed the money-lender’s wife through 
them with a good long stony British stare, for all the 
world as if she were a specimen of some rare new 
genus, just introduced from Central Africa into the 
Zoological Gardens of English society. But Mrs. 
Clarke, who was too stout to notice these little things, 
lived on through the stares in the complacent satis- 
faction of the diamonds that glittered on her own 
expansive neck ; while as for Florrie, with her short 
black hair even more frizzed and fluffy than ever, she 
was too deeply taken up with that charming Captain 
Bourchier to notice what was happening between her 
mamma and their hostess. Captain Bourchier, she 
felt, was quite the right sort of man — a perfect gentle- 
man. He was older than Eeggie Hesslegrave, of 
course, but very nearly as good-looking ; and then, he 
was well connected, and held such delightfully cynical 
views of life — in fact, disbelieved in everybody and 
everything, which, as all the world knows, is so 
extremely high-toned. Miss Florrie was delighted 
with him. He wasn’t rich, to be sure ; that papa and 


THE HEART OF THE DECOY DUCK 189 

mamma had heard ; but he was the son of an 
Honourable, and the first-cousin of a peer, not to 
mention remote chances of succeeding through his 
mother to a baronetcy in abeyance. Florrie felt at 
once this was a very different case from poor dear 
Eeggie Hesslegrave’s ; and when at the end of the 
evening Captain Bourchier gave her hand the most 
delicately chivalrous pressure imaginable, and trusted 
Mrs. Clarke would allow him to call some day soon at 
Kutland Gate, Florrie realized on the spot this was 
genuine business, and responded with a maiden blush 
of the purest water. That dainty little baby face was 
always equal to such an emergency ; for Miss Florrie 
had the manners of the most shrinking ingdmie, with 
the mind and soul which might reasonably be expected 
of Spider Clarke’s daughter. 

And yet not wholly so, as things turned out in the 
end : for, after Captain Bourchier had called once or 
twice at Eutland Gate, and had duly poured into Miss 
Florrie’s ears his tale of artless love, and been officially 
accepted by Miss Florrie’s papa and mamma as the 
prospective inheritor of Miss Florrie’s thousands, a 
strange thing came to pass in the inmost recesses of 
Miss Florrie’s heart — a thing that Miss Florrie herself 
could never possibly have counted upon. For when 
she came to tell Eeggie Hesslegrave that she had 
received a most eligible offer from a captain in a 
cavalry regiment, and had accepted it with the advice 
and consent of her parents, poor Eeggie’ s face grew so 
pale and downcast that Florrie fairly pitied him. And 
then, with a flash of surprise, the solemn discovery 
burst in upon her that in spite of papa and mamma, 
and the principles they had instilled, she and Eeggie 
Hesslegrave were actually in love with one another. 


190 


AT MARKET VALUE 


It was true, quite true : so far as those two young 
people were capable of loving, they were actually in 
love with one another. The human heart, that very 
incalculable factor in the problem of life, had taken its 
revenge at last on Miss Florrie. She had been brought 
up to believe the heart was a thing to be lightly 
stifled in the interests of the highest bidder, social or 
mercantile ; and now that she had accepted a most 
eligible bid, all things considered, she woke up all at 
once to sudden consciousness of the fact that her heart, 
her heart too, had a word to say in this matter. 
What she had mistaken for the merest passing flirta- 
tion with Reggie Hesslegrave was in reality a vast 
deal more deep and serious than what she had been 
taught to regard as the grave business of life with 
Captain Bourchier. She had feelings a little pro- 
founder and more genuine than she suspected. The 
soul within her was not quite so dead as her careful 
upbringing had led her to believe it. 

In point of fact, when real tears rose spontaneous, 
at the announcement, in Reggie Hesslegrave’ s eyes, 
real tears rose to meet them in Miss Florrie’s in turn. 
They were both astonished to find how much each 
thought of the other. 

Not that Florrie had the faintest intention — just as 
yet — of throwing overboard her eligible cavalry officer. 
That would be the purest Quixotism. But she recog- 
nised at the same time that the cavalry officer was 
business, society, convention ; while Reggie Hessle- 
grave was now romance — a perilous delight she had 
never till that moment dreamed of. As romance she 
accepted him, therefore, and much romance she got 
out of him ; risky romance of a sort that stirred in 
poor Florrie’s sleepy sluggish heart a strange throbbing 


THE HEART OF THE DECOY DUCK 


191 

and beating never before suspected. She was engaged 
to Captain Bourchier, of course, and she meant to 
marry him ; one doesn’t throw overboard such a 
chance as that of placing one’s self a£ once in the 
very thick of good society. But week after week, and 
month after month, while she met Captain Bourchier 
from time to time at dance or racecourse, she still 
went on writing in private most passionately despair- 
ing letters to Keggie Hesslegrave, whom she could 
never marry. As she put it herself, she was dead 
stuck on Keggie. Week after week, and month after 
month, she made stolen opportunities for meeting 
him, unawares, as it seemed, by Hyde Park Corner, 
or saying a few hurried words to him as she passed in 
Piccadilly. Then the interviews between them grew 
bolder and bolder ; Florrie pencilled a few hasty 
lines : 

‘ Will be at the Academy with mamma to-morrow 
at ten ; meet me, if you can, in the Architectural 
Drawings ; it’s always empty. I’ll leave mamma in 
one of the other rooms ; she doesn’t care to go round 
and look at all the pictures.’ 

And these fleeting moments grew dearer and ever 
dearer to Florrie Clarke’s mind ; they came as a reve- 
lation to her of a new force in her bosom ; till she got 
engaged to Captain Bourchier, she had never herself 
suspected what profound capacity for a simple sort of 
every-day romance existed within her 

Moreover, ’tis a peculiarity of the thing we call love 
that it gets out of every man and every woman the 
very best that is in them. Keggie Hesslegrave began 
to feel himself in his relation to Florrie quite other 
than he had ever felt himself in any other relation of 


192 


AT MARKET VALUE 


his poor wasted existence. He loved that girl, with 
a love that, for him, was very nearly unselfish. He 
thought of her and he dreamt of her. He lived day 
and night for her. He risked Kathleen’s money 
recklessly for her sake on impossible outsiders, and 
backed the favourite at race after race, in utter dis- 
regard of worldly circumstances, in order to win her a 
princely income. That was about the highest point 
Keggie’s industry, affection, and unselfishness could 
reach ; in his way, he was raised above his own normal 
level. For Florrie he would almost have consented 
to wear an unfashionable coat, or to turn down his 
trousers when Bond Street turned them up, or to do 
anything, in fact, that a woman could wish — except 
curb his expenditure and lay by for the future. 

So, for about eighteen months, things went on in 
this way : and then flying rumours began to flit about 
town that Spider Clarke of late had not been doing 
quite so well in his money-lending as usual. His star 
was waning. It was whispered at the clubs that, 
emboldened by his success with Algy Eedburn, whom 
he was known to have financed during the tedious 
course of the Axminster peerage case, he had launched 
out too freely into similar speculations elsewhere, and 
had burnt his fingers over the monetary affairs of a 
very high personage. With bated breath, people 
mentioned his Serene Highness the Duke of Saxe- 
Weissnichtwo. Whether this was so or not, it is 
certain at least that Spider Clarke was less in repute 
in St. James’s than formerly; the ladies who returned 
Mrs. Clarke’s bows so coldly at the theatre, returned 
them now with the very faintest of possible inclinations, 
or affected to be turning their opera-glasses in the 
opposite direction, and not to notice her. Even 


THE HEART OF THE DECOY DUCK 


193 


Captain Bourchier himself, whose suit had been 
pressed hard and warm at first, began to fancy it was 
a precious good thing that innocent - looking little 
Decoy Duck had played so fast and loose with him ; 
for, as things were turning out now, he was con- 
foundedly inclined to doubt whether the man who 
got her would get enough pickings with her to 
make it worth his while to give up that very mys- 
terious entity he called his liberty. Henceforth, he 
was seen less and less often at Eutland Gate, and 
affected more and more at the Flamingo Club to 
speak of his relations with the Spiderette as a mere 
passing flirtation, that had never been meant to come 
to anything serious. 

So matters went on till the end of the season. 
Meanwhile, the less Florrie saw of the accepted lover, 
the more and more did she see of the clandestine and 
romantic one. As for Eeggie, he began to plan out a 
mighty scheme for winning himself fortune at a single 
stroke — a heroic investment of every penny he could 
raise, by pledging his slender credit, on a famous tip 
for the coming Cesarewitch. He intended to be rich, 
and to cut out that beastly Bourchier man, and to 
make himself a swell, and to marry Florrie. On the 
very afternoon when the news of his fortune was to 
reach London by telegram, however, he received a 
despatch at his office in the City which considerably 
disquieted him. Just at the first blush, to be sure, he 
thought it must be meant to announce the triumph of 
Canterbury Bell, whom he had ‘ backed for his pile 
but when he opened it, what he read was simply 
this : 

* Come round to-night to see me ; ask for me at the 

13 


194 


AT MARKET VALUE 


hall door ; important news ; must speak with you. 
— Floerie.’ 

Mr. Eeginald wondered much what this message 
could portend. He determined to go round to Eutland 
Gate at the earliest possible moment — as soon as he 
had satisfied himself that Canterbury Bell had be- 
haved as he had a right to expect of such a filly, and 
that he was indeed the possessor of a marrying 
competence. 


CHAPTEE XVIII. 

PRECONTRACT OF MATRIMONY. 

That night was the most eventful of Mr. Eeginald’s 
life. For some weeks beforehand, indeed, he had 
lived in a perfect ferment of feverish excitement, 
intending, in his own expressive dialect, to ‘ pull off a 
double coup ’ on the day when Canterbury Bell pro- 
vided him at one stroke with a colossal fortune. To 
say the truth, he held in his pocket, against this fore- 
gone contingency, a most important Document, which 
he designed to pull forth and exhibit theatrically to 
the obdurate Florrie at such a dramatic moment of 
triumph, that even Florrie herself would have nothing 
left for it but to throw overboard incontinently the 
cavalry officer, and fly forthwith to love in a cottage 
with her faithful admirer. Mr. Eeginald had planned 
this all out beforehand in the minutest detail ; and he 
had so little doubt of Canterbury Bell’s ability to land 
him at once in fame and fortune, that he pulled forth 


PRECONTRACT OF MATRIMONY 


195 


the Document many times during the course of the 
day, and read it through to himself once more with 
the intensest satisfaction. 

Still, it’s hard to wait for hours, slaving and toiling 
in an office in the City, when you know full w^ell — on 
the unimpeachable authority of a private tip — that 
wealth and immunity are waiting for you all the while 
— to a moral certainty — at a bookmaker’s at New- 
market. But necessity knows no law ; and Mr. 
Reginald nathless so endured till five in the evening. 
By that hour he had reached the well-known office in 
the Strand where he was wont to await the first tele- 
grams of results from the racecourses of his country. 
As he approached those fateful doors, big with hope 
and apprehension, a strange trembling seized him. 
People were surging and shouting round the window 
of the office in wild excitement. All the evil passions 
of squalid London were let loose there. But Mr. 
Reginald’s experienced eye told him at once the deadly 
news that the favourite must have won — for the crowd 
was a joyous one. Now, the crowd in front of a sport- 
ing paper’s office on the evening of a race day is only 
jubilant when the favourite has won ; otherwise, of 
course, it stands morose and silent before the tidings 
of its failure. But Canterbury Bell was what Mr. 
Reginald himself would have described in the classic 
tongue of the turf — the muddy turf of Fleet Street — 
as ‘a rank outsider,’ for it is only by backing a rank 
outsider at heavy odds, ‘ on unexceptionable informa- 
tion,’ that you can hope to haul in an enormous 
fortune at a stroke, without risking a corresponding 
or equal capital to start with. So the paeans of delight 
from the crowd that danced and yelled outside the 
office of the sporting paper made Reggie’s heart sink 


196 


AT MARKET VALUE 


ominously. Could his tipster have played him false ? 
It looked very much like it. 

Worse and worse, as he drew nearer he could 
catch the very words of that jubilant cry — ‘ The 
Plunger ! The Plunger !’ A hundred voices echoed 
it wildly to and fro in their excitement. The whole 
air was fairly rent with it — ‘ The Plunger ! The 
Plunger ! !’ 

Now, the Plunger was the name of that wretched 
horse, the favourite ! Eeggie came up with bated 
breath. His heart stood still within him. 

‘ What’s won ?’ he asked a costermonger, who was 
shouting with the rest. 

And the man, giving him a cool stare, made answer 
at once : 

‘ Wy, can’t you see it up there, you image ? The 
Plunger ! The Plunger !’ 

Eeggie raised his eyes at once to the big lime-lit 
transparency on the front of the signboard, and read 
there his doom. It ivas The Plunger ! 

‘ And Canterbury Bell?’ he gasped out, half clutch- 
ing the man for support. 

‘ Canterbury Bell !’ the costermonger responded 
with an instinctive gesture of profound contempt. 

‘ You ’aven’t gone and risked yer money on Canter- 
bury Bell, ’ave yer ? Wy, Canterbury Bell was never 
in it at all. I could ’a told you that much if you’d ’a 
axed me aforehand. Canterbury Bell’s a bloomin’ 
fraud. She wan’t meant to stay. She wan’t never 
so much as in it.’ 

Eeggie ’s brain reeled round. With a sickening sense 
of disillusion and disappointment, he clutched the 
Document in his pocket. Then all was up. He could 
never marry Florrie. The bubble had burst. He had 


PRECONTRACT OF MATRIMONY 


197 


chucked away his bottom dollar on a ‘ blooming fraud/ 
as the costermonger called it. Life was now one vast 
blank. He didn’t know where to turn for consolation 
and comfort. 

His first idea, in fact, was to slink off, unperceived, 
and never keep the engagement with Florrie at all. 
What use was he now to Florrie or to anybody ? He 
was simply stone-broke. Not a girl in the world 
would care for him. His second idea was to fling 
himself forthwith over Waterloo Bridge ; but from 
that heroic cowardice he was deterred by the con- 
sideration that the water was cold, and if he did, he 
would probably drown before anyone could rescue 
him, for he was a feeble swimmer. His third and 
final idea was to go and tell Florrie every word of 
what had happened, and to throw himself, so to 
speak, on her generosity and her mercy. 

Third ideas are best. So he went, after all, to 
Kutland Gate, much dispirited. A man-servant in a 
mood as dejected as his own opened the front door to 
him. Was Miss Clarke at home ? Yes, the servant 
replied still more dejectedly than ever ; if he liked, he 
could see her. 

Eeggie stepped in, all wonder. He rather fancied 
that man-servant, too, must have lost his all through 
the astounding and incomprehensible victory of The 
Plunger. 

In the drawing-room, Florrie met him, very red as 
to the eyes. Her mien was strange. She kissed him 
with frank tenderness. Peggie stared wider than 
ever. It began to strike him that all London must 
have backed Canterbury Bell for a place, and gone 
bankrupt accordingly. Argentines were nothing to it. 
He had visions of a crash on ’Change to-morrow. 


198 


AT MARKET VALUE 


But Florrie held his hand in hers with genuine 
gentleness. 

‘ Well, you’ve heard what’s happened ?’ she said. 

‘ You dear ! and still you come to see me ?’ 

‘What? The Plunger?’ Eeggie ejaculated, unable 
to realize any save his own misfortune. 

‘ The Plunger !’ Florrie repeated in a vague sort of 
reverie. ‘ I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. It’s 
this about poor papa. Of course you’ve heard it ?’ 

‘ Not a word,’ Eeggie answered, with a pervading 
sense that misfortunes, like twins, never come single. 

‘ Has anything dreadful happened ?’ 

‘ Anything dreadful ?’ Florrie echoed, bursting at 
once into tears. ‘ Oh, Eeggie, you don’t know ! 
Everything dreadful ! everything !’ And she buried 
her fluffy head most unaffectedly in his shoulder. 

Eeggie was really too chivalrous a man, at such a 
moment, when beauty was in distress, to remember 
his own troubles. He kissed away Florrie’s tears, as 
a man feels bound to do when beauty flings itself on 
him, weeping ; and as soon as she was restored to the 
articulate condition, he asked, somewhat tremulous, 
for further particulars. For ‘ everything,’ though 
extensive enough to cover all the truth, yet seems to 
fail somewhat on the score of explicitness. 

‘ Look at the paper !’ Florrie cried with another 
burst, all sobs. ‘ Oh, Eeggie, it’s too dreadful ! I just 
coidd7i*t tell you it.’ 

She handed him an evening journal as she spoke. 
Eeggie glanced at the place to which her plump little 
forefinger vaguely referred him. The words swam 
before his eyes. This was truly astonishing : ‘ Arrest 
of the Well-known Money-lender, Mr. “ Spider ” 
Clarke, for Fraud and Embezzlement. Alleged 


PRECONTRACT OF MATRIMONY 


199 


Gigantic System of Wholesale Forgery. Liabilities, 
Eighty Thousand ; Probable Assets, Nil. The Spider’s 
Web, and the Flies that filled it !’ 

Eeggie read it all through with a cold thrill of 
horror. To think that Florrie’s papa should have 
turned out a fraud, only second to Canterbury Bell, in 
whom he trusted ! It was terrible, terrible ! As soon 
as he had read it, he turned with swimming eyes of 
affection to Florrie. His own misfortunes had put 
him already into a melting mood. He bent down to 
her tenderly. He kissed her forehead twice. . 

‘ My darling,’ he said gently, with real sympathy 
and softness, ‘ I’m so sorry for you ! so sorry ! But, 
oh, Florrie, I’m so glad you thought of sending for 
me.’ 

Florrie drew out a letter in answer from her pocket. 

‘ And just to think,’ she cried with flashing eyes, 
handing it across to him with indignation, ‘ that 
dreadful other man- — before the thing had happened 
one single hour — the hateful, hateful wretch — he 
wrote me that letter ! Did ever you read anything so 
mean and cruel ? I know, what to think of him now, 
and, thank goodness, I’ve done with him !’ 

Eeggie read the letter through with virtuous horror. 
As poor Florrie observed, it was a sufficiently heartless 
one. It set forth, in the stiffest and most conven- 
tional style, that, after the events which had hap- 
pened to-day before the eyes of all London, Miss 
Clarke would of course recognise how impossible it 
was for an officer and a gentleman and a man of 
honour to maintain his relations any longer with her 
family ; and it therefore begged her to consider the 
writer in future as nothing more than hers truly, 

PoNSONBY StRETFEILD BoURCHIER. 


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Eeggie handed it back with a thrill of genuine 
disgust. ‘ The man’s a cad,’ he said shortly; and, to 
do him justice, he felt it. Meanness or heartlessness 
of that calculated sort was wholly alien to Eeginald 
Hesslegrave’s impulsive nature. 

‘ Thank you, Eeggie,’ Florrie said, drawing nearer 
and nearer to him. ‘ But you know, dear, I don’t 
mind. I never cared one pin for him. After the first 
few weeks, when I thought of him beside you^ I posi- 
tively hated him. That’s the one good thing that has 
come out of all this trouble ; he won’t bother me any 
more ; I’ve got fairly rid of him.’ 

Eeggie pressed her to his side. 

‘Florrie dear,’ he whispered chivalrously, ‘when 
you talk like that, do you know, you almost make me 
feel glad all this trouble has come — if it has had the 
effect of making us draw closer to one another.’ 

And that it had that effect at that present moment 
was a fact just then visibly and physically demon- 
strable. 

Florrie laid the frizzy curls for a minute or two on 
his shoulder. In spite of her misfortunes, she was 
momentarily quite happy. 

‘I always loved you, Eeggie,’ she cried; ‘and I 
can’t be sorry for anything that makes you love me.’ 
And she nestled to his bosom with the most confiding 
self-surrender. 

This confidence on Florrie’s part begot in return 
equal confidence on Eeggie’s. Before many minutes 
he had begun to tell that innocent, round-faced girl 
how narrowly he had just missed a princely fortune, 
and how opulent he would have been if only Canter- 
bury Bell has behaved as might have been expected of 
so fine a filly. 


PRECONTRACT OF MATRIMONY 


201 


‘ And it was all for you, Florrie,’ he said ruefully, 
fingering the Document all the while in the recesses of 
his pocket. ‘ It was all for you, dear one ! I thought I 
should be able to come round to you to-night in, oh 
such triumph, and tell you of my good-luck, and ask 
you to throw that vile Bourchier creature overboard 
for my sake, and marry me offhand — because I so 
loved you. And now it’s all gone smash — through 
that beastly wretch. The Plunger.’ 

‘ Did you really think all that ?’ Florrie cried, look- 
ing up at him through her tears, and smiling con- 
fidingly. 

‘ Do you doubt it ?’ Eeggie asked, half drawing the 
Document from the bottom of his pocket. 

‘ N-no, darling. I don’t exactly doubt it,’ Florrie 
answered, gazing still harder. ‘ But I wonder ... if 
you will say it just now, so as to please me.’ 

Eeggie’s time had come. Fortune favours the brave. 
He held forth the Document itself in triumph at the 
dramatic moment. After all, it had come in useful. 
‘ Eead that !’ he cried aloud in a victorious voice, like 
a man who produces irrefragable evidence. 

Florrie gazed at the very official -looking paper in 
intense surprise. She hardly knew what to make of 
it. It was an instrument signed by the Eight Eeverend 
Father in God, the Archbishop of Canterbury ; and it set 
forth in fitting terms his archiepiscopal blessing upon 
a proposed union between Eeginald Francis Hessle- 
grave, Bachelor, of the Parish of St. Mary Abbot’s 
Kensington, and Florence Amelia Barton Clarke, 
Spinster, of the Parish of Westminster. 

Florrie gazed at it, all puzzled. 

‘ Why, what does this mean, dearest ?’ she faltered 
out with emotion. ‘ I don’t at all understand it.’ 


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That was a proud moment for Eeggie — about the 
proudest of his life. 

‘Well, it’s called a special license, dear,’ he an- 
swered, bending over her. ‘ You see, Florrie, I took 
it for granted Canterbury Bell was safe to win — as 
safe as houses — so I made up my mind to try a couj) 
beforehand. I went to the surrogate and swore a 
declaration ’ 

‘ A what ?’ Florrie exclaimed, overcome by so much 
devotion. 

‘A declaration,’ Eeggie continued, ‘ don’t you know 
— a sort of statement that we both of us wished to get 
married at once, and wanted a license ; and here the 
license is ; and I thought, when Canterbury Bell had 
won, and I was as rich as Croesus, if I brought it to 
you, just so, you’d say like a bird : “ Never mind my 
people ; never mind Captain Bourchier. I’ve always 
loved you, Eeggie, and now I’m going to marry you.” 
But that beastly fool The Plunger plunged in and 
spoiled all. If it hadn’t been for him, you might 
perhaps have been Mrs. Eeginald Hesslegrave to- 
morrow morning. Mrs. Eeginald Hesslegrave is a 
first-rate name, darling.’ 

Florrie looked up at him confidingly. She recog- 
nised the adapted quotation from a well-known poet. 

‘ And it’s no good now,’ she said plaintively, ‘ since 
The Plunger put a stop to it !’ 

A gleam of hope dawned in Eeggie’s eyes. He was 
in a lover’s mood : all romance and poetry. 

‘Well, the license is all right,’ he said, taking 
Florrie’ s hand in his and smoothing it tenderly. 
‘ The license is all right, if it comes to that. There’s 
no reason, as far as the formalities go, why I shouldn’t 
marry you, if you will, to-morrow morning.’ 


PRECONTRACT OF MATRIMONY 


203 


‘ Then what stands in the way T Florrie inquired 
innocently. 

‘You,’ Reggie answered at once, with a sudden 
burst of gallantry. ‘ You yourself entirely. Nothing 
else prevents it.’ 

Florrie flung herself into his arms. 

‘ Reggie ! Reggie !’ she sobbed out, ‘ I love you with 
all my heart ! I love you ! I love you ! You’re the 
only man on earth I ever really loved. With you, and 
for your sake, I could endure anything — anything.’ 

Reggie gazed at her, entranced. She was really 
very pretty. Such eyes ! such hair ! He felt himself 
at that moment a noble creature. How splendid of 
him thus to come, like a modern Perseus, to the 
rescue of beauty — of beauty in distress at its hour of 
trial ! How grand of him to act in the exact opposite 
way from that detestable Bourchier creature, who had 
failed at a pinch, and to marry Florrie offhand at the 
very time when her father had passed under a serious 
cloud, and when there was some sort of merit in 
marrying her at once without a penny of expectations ! 
Conduct like that had a specious magnanimity about 
it which captivated Reginald Hesslegrave’s romantic 
heart. The only point in the case he quite forgot to 
consider was the probability that Kathleen, uncon- 
sulted on the project, might be called upon to support 
both bride and bridegroom. 

He clasped the poor panting little Decoy Duck to 
his bosom. 

‘ Flossie dearest,’ he murmured, ‘ I have nothing ; 
you have nothing ; we have both of us nothing. We 
know now it’s only for pure, pure love we can think of 
one another. I love you. Will you take me ? Can 
you face it all out with me ?’ 


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Florrie hid her face yet once more in Eeggie’s best 
white waistcoat. He didn’t even stop to reflect how 
she tumbled it. 

‘Darling! darling!’ she cried. ‘How unselfish — 
how noble of you !’ 

Eeggie drew himself up with an ineffable sense of 
having acted, in difficult circumstances, like a perfect 
gentleman. He was proud of his chivalry. 

‘ Then to-morrow,’ he said briefly, ‘ we will be 
married with this license, as the Archbishop directs, 
at St. Mary Abbott’s, Kensington.’ 

Florrie clung to him with all her arms. She 
seemed to have a dozen of them. 

‘ Oh, you dear !’ she cried, overjoyed. ‘ And at such 
a moment ! How grand of you ! How sweet ! Oh, 
Eeggie, now I know you are indeed a true gentleman!’ 

Eeggie thought so himself, and stood six inches taller 
in his own estimation ; though even before. Heaven 
had granted him a fairly good conceit o’ himself. 


CHAPTEE XIX. 

KE-ENTER MORTIMER. 

It’s an easy enough matter getting married in London, 
when you’re carrying a special license for the purpose 
in your pocket : it smooths over the ingenious obstruc- 
tions placed by English law in the way of matrimony ; 
and Eeggie, having once decided to perform, as he 
thought, this magnanimous action, saw no reason 
why he should not perform it at once, now the crisis 
had come, with the utmost expedition. So he 


RE-ENTER MORTIMER 


205 


despatched an imaginative telegram to the office in the 
City next morning, announcing — with a lordly dis- 
regard of historical truth — that he was prevented by 
serious indisposition from attending to his work in 
Capel Court that day ; after which little excursion 
into the realms of fiction, he met Florrie by appoint- 
ment at the church door, where, accompanied only by 
Charlie Owen, who undertook the arduous duty of 
giving away the bride, he was duly married at St. 
Mary Abbott’s, Kensington, to blushing little Florrie 
in her plain white flannel. (It came in quite handy, 
Florrie said, to be married in.) 

Eeggie was aw^are that he was performing a noble 
and generous act ; and he looked fully conscious of it. 
As for Florrie, she thought nobody had ever been so 
heroic and so chivalrous as Eeggie ; and she felt 
prouder that morning, in her simple white frock, with 
her stockbroker’s clerk, than if she had married the 
Commander-in-Chief himself, let alone a mere Captain 
in a distinguished cavalry regiment. 

As soon as the ceremony was over, and Charlie 
Owen had evaporated, Eeggie began to reflect seriously 
upon the lions in the path— the question of ways and 
means — the difficulties of supporting a wife and 
family. Stern critics might suggest that it was 
perhaps a few minutes late for taking that branch of 
the subject into consideration ; but being now a 
married man, Eeggie determined to face the duties of 
the situation as became his heightened dignity. He 
made up his mind at once to look out for some better 
paid post, and do his best to earn an adequate liveli- 
hood for Florrie. Meanwhile, however, and just as a 
temporary expedient, he decided — to ask a little pass- 
ing assistance from his sister Kitty. 


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It was always so. Master Eeggie danced; ’twas 
poor Kitty’s place to pay the piper. Not that very 
day, of course. Hang it all, you know ! a man may 
be allowed three days of honeymoon with the wife of 
his youth, before busying himself with the sordid 
mundane affairs of pounds, shillings, and pence, 
mayn’t he ? So Reggie resolutely determined to live 
in future a most quiet and saving life, and endeavoured 
to distract poor Florrie’s mind in the interim from 
this horrid crash in her papa’s affau’s by spending the 
few remaining pounds he had still in pocket from last 
quarter’s salary in taking her round to all the best 
burlesques then going on at the theatres. It didn’t so 
much matter spending these few stray sovereigns like 
that, don’t you see, because he meant to put his case 
plainly before Kitty next week, and get her to make 
him a last final loan on the strength of his new good 
resolutions as security ; after which, he said to himself 
with the utmost firmness, he meant to reform alto- 
gether, and strike out a new line of economic action. 
Reggie was magnificent at good resolutions. The 
bother of it was, they all went to swell that nether 
pavement. 

Now, it so happened that during those days Rufus 
Mortimer, too, who had been over in America for a 
year and a day, in part to distract himself from the 
effects of his disappointment, and in part to look after 
the ancestral engineering works, had returned to 
London, and had written to ask Kathleen’s leave to 
visit her once more at her lodgings in Kensington — a 
smaller set, which she had occupied since her mother’s 
death, and her consequent reduction of available 
income. 

Kathleen always liked Rufus Mortimer. She knew 


RE-ENTER MORTIMER 


207 


he was genuine. She recognised his goodness of heart 
and his true American chivalry ; for where women are 
concerned, there is no person on earth more delicately 
chivalrous than your American gentleman. So, with 
sundry misgivings, she allowed Eufus Mortimer to call 
on her again, though she hoped he would not reopen 
the foregone conclusion she had settled that day on 
the Lido at Venice. And Eufus Mortimer for his part 
arrived at her rooms with a firm determination in his 
own mind not to ask Kathleen anything that might 
possibly be embarrassing to her feelings or sentiments* 
This first visit at least should be a purely friendly one ; 
it should be taken up in discovering, by the most casual 
indications of straws on the wind, how Kathleen now 
felt towards her rejected lover. 

But have you ever noticed that if you set out any- 
where, fully determined in your own mind to conduct 
a conversation upon certain prearranged lines, you 
invariably find yourself at the end of ten minutes 
diverging entirely from the route you planned out for 
yourself, and saying the very things you had most 
earnestly decided wild horses of the Ukraine should 
never tear from you ? 

It was so with Eufus Mortimer. Before he had been 
ten minutes engaged in talk with Kathleen, he found 
conversation had worked round by slow degrees, of 
itself, to Venice; and when once it got to Venice, 
what more natural on earth than to inquire about old 
Venetian acquaintances? while, among old Venetian 
acquaintances, how possibly omit, without looking 
quite pointed, the name of the one who had been most 
in both their minds during that whole last winter on 
the Fondamenta delle Zattere ? Eufus Mortimer felt 
there was no avoiding the subject. Like the moth with 


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the candle, he circled round and round, and at last 
dashed right into it. 

‘ And Willoughby ?’ he asked after a pause, with a 
furtive side-look; ‘have you never heard anything 
more, Miss Hesslegrave, about Willoughby ?’ 

Kathleen’s face flushed rosy red, but she gave no 
other sign of her suppressed emotion as she answered 
with a quiet resignation of manner : 

‘ No ; I’ve heard nothing more of him since he left 
Venice that April.’ 

Mortimer leaned forward eagerly. A bright light 
gleamed in his eye. 

‘ What ! he hasn’t ever written to you ?’ he cried. 
‘ Do you mean to say he hasn’t written ?’ 

Kathleen gazed at him pleadingly. 

‘No, Mr. Mortimer,’ she answered in a very sad 
voice. ‘ He — he went away from Venice under circum- 
stances which I can’t quite explain in full to you ; and 
from that day to this ’ — her lips' quivered visibly — 
‘ I’ve never heard anything more of him.’ 

Mortimer clutched his two hands in one another 
nervously. 

‘ Oh, how wrong of him !’ he cried, with a timid 
glance at Kathleen. ‘ How unkind ! How cruel ! 
Why, Miss Hesslegrave, I should never have expected 
such conduct from Willoughby.’ 

‘Nor I,’ Kathleen admitted frankly, with a little 
burst of unreserve. It was such a relief to be able to 
talk about him to anybody who could understand, 
were it even but a little, her position. ‘ But then — 
oh, Mr. Mortimer, you don’t know all. If you knew 
how unhappily and how strangely he was misled, you 
wouldn’t be harsh in your judgment of him.’ 

‘ By — your mother ?’ Mortimer inquired, with a 


RE-ENTER MORTIMER 


209 


flash of intuition — one of those electric flashes which 
often occur to men of the nervous temperament when 
talking with women. 

Kathleen bowed her head. 

‘ Yes, by my mother,’ she answered softly. 

There was a long deep pause. Then Mortimer 
spoke once more. 

‘ That was eighteen months ago now,’ he said, in a 
gentle undertone. 

Kathleen assented. 

‘ Yes, eighteen months ago.’ 

‘ And you’ve heard nothing more of him in any way 
since, directly or indirectly ?’ 

‘ No, nothing,’ Kathleen answered. Then she 
paused for a second, doubtful whether or not to utter 
the thought that was in her. ‘ Though I’ve tried 
every way I knew how,’ she went on at last with an 
effort. 

Mortimer turned to her gently. He was more like a 
woman than a man in his sympathy. 

‘ You’ve been pressing this trouble down unconfessed 
in your own heart, Miss Hesslegrave,’ he said with 
strange candour, yet strange gentleness of manner ; for 
he came from one of those old Pennsylvanian Quaker 
families in which a certain feminine tenderness of 
nature may almost be reckoned as a hereditary 
possession. ‘ You’ve been pressing it down too long, 
till the repression has done you harm. It has told on 
your health. Why not confide in me frankly ? You 
know me well enough to know that if there is any way 
in which it’s possible for me to help you, I shall be 
more than repaid by the consciousness of having 
served you.’ 

‘You’re too good, Mr. Mortimer,’ Kathleen answered. 

14 


210 


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the tears rising fast to her blinded eyes. * I haven’t 
deserved this from you. But you don’t understand. 
You never could understand. For — well, for Ms sake 
I could never explain this matter to anybody. You 
see, it would be a real breach of confidence. There are 
points I can’t explain, because — they’re his secret.’ 

‘ And yet he has left you !’ Rufus Mortimer 
exclaimed. ‘While I — oh. Miss Hesslegrave !’ He 
looked at her and held his peace. He was more in 
love with her than ever. 

Kathleen rose and faced him. 

‘ Dear Mr. Mortimer,’ she said, with a faint tremor 
in her voice, ‘we are no longer boy and girl. Why 
shouldn’t I speak freely to you ? You are very, very 
kind, more kind than I deserve ; but — you mustn’t 
talk like that to me. I love him still ; I mustn’t allow 
any other man to say such things to me about him. I 
like you, oh, ever so much, for all your kindness and 
sympathy ; but I can’t listen to you when you talk 
like that of his conduct. Please, please, don’t do it.’ 

Mortimer leaned back again in his chair and looked 
hard at her. 

‘ If you wish it,’ he answered, ‘ I’ll speak, or I’ll be 
silent. Your will is law to me. I will do as you wish 
me. But I didn’t come here to plead for myself to- 
day. All that shall be buried. Only, let me know 
whether it would help you to see him again. If it 
would, I’ll hunt him out, though I have to tranip on 
foot over Europe to do it.’ 

‘ Yes, I want to see him again!’ Kathleen answered, 
‘ just once — if no more — to explain to him. He went 
away under a misapprehension that she had impressed 
upon him. So unjust! so untrue ! And it’s breaking 
my heart. I can’t stand it, Mr. Mortimer.’ 


RE-ENTER MORTIMER 


2II 


‘ I shall find him out,’ Mortimer cried, rising ; ‘ if 
he’s to be found, I shall find him. In Europe, Asia. 
Africa, or America, I shall find him. Wherever he is. 
I’ll track him. Miss Hesslegrave, I’ll catch him by 
the neck and bring him to you.’ 

‘You can’t,’ Kathleen answered. ‘He has gone, 
like a shooting- star. He has left no trace behind. 
But I’m none the less grateful to you. You have 
always behaved tome as nobody else could have done.’ 
She paused again for a second. ‘ If it were not for 
Mm ’ she began ; then she broke off, faltering. 

‘Thank you,’ the American replied in a very low 
voice, supplying the missing words for himself without 
difficulty. ‘ I appreciate your kindness. I will do 
my best to find him. But if he never turns up again 
— if he has disappeared for ever — oh. Miss Hessle- 
grave, is there no chance — no hope for any other 
man ?’ 

Kathleen gazed at him fixedly. 

‘No, no hope,’ she answered with a visible effort. 
‘ Mr. Mortimer, I like you ; I respect you ever so much. 
But I love Arnold Willoughby. I could never give 
my heart to any man but him. And unless I gave 
my heart ’ 

‘You are right,’ Mortimer broke in. ‘There we 
two are at one. I care for nothing else. It is your 
heart I would ask for.’ 

Trembling, he rose to go. But he held her hand 
long. 

‘ And remember,’ he said with a lump in his throat, 
‘ if at any time you see reason to change your mind^ 
I too have loved one woman too well in my time ever 
to love any other. I am yours, and yours only. One 
motion of your hand, and be sure I shall understand 


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it ! He may die out of your life. You can’t die out 
of mine. I shall always hope on, though no good 
come of hoping.’ 

He grasped her hand hard ; Kathleen allowed him 
to grasp it. He stooped down and imprinted one kiss 
on the soft palm ; she did not resent the action. She 
felt too well in what spirit he did it to feel called upon 
to prevent him. She had pity for his despair. Then 
he hurried down the stairs. His heart was too full 
for him to remain any longer. He could hardly hold 
back his tears, so deeply was he agitated. 

On the doorstep he knocked up by accident against 
Keggie., The head of the house stopped the stranger 
quite eagerly. 

‘ Hullo,’ he exclaimed in some surprise ; ‘ are you 
back again in England ?’ 

‘ Yes, so it seems,’ the American replied, trying to 
calm himself outwardly. ‘ I got back on Tuesday.’ 

‘ Last Tuesday as ever was ?’ Eeggie cried. 

‘ Yes, just so : last Tuesday.’ 

‘ And lost no time in hunting Kitty up !’ Eeggie 
went on, with a broad smile. This was really most 
promising. He knew the American, though an artist 
by choice, was reputed one of the richest business men 
in Philadelphia. It looked extremely healthy that he 
should have been in such a hurry to hunt up Kathleen. 

‘My first visit was to Miss Hesslegrave,’ Mortimer 
answered with truth, feeling on his side the immense 
importance of conciliating Kathleen’s only brother and 
sole surviving relation. 

Eeggie drew a long breath. Could anything have 
been more opportune ? How pat comes fate ! The 
moment had just arrived when he stood in sorest need 
of a wealthy brother-in-law ; and now, in the nick of 


RE-ENTER MORTIMER 


213 


time, on the very crest of opportunity, here was chance 
itself throwing the pick of wealthy brothers-in-law 
right in his path, as it were, like a crooked sixpence ; 
foi'j though Eufus Mortimer tried to look and speak as 
unconcernedly as he could about his visit to Kitty, 
there was something in his voice and manner which 
showed Keggie quite clearly the nature of his errand 
at Kensington that morning. Eeggie had suspected 
as much, indeed, since the first summer Mortimer 
spent in his own hired house in London ; but it was 
plain as the sun in the sky to him that moment what 
he meant ; if Kathleen chose she could marry the 
millionaire, and thereby confer on her loving brother 
the inestimable boon of a moneyed relation. 

‘ I’m proud to hear it,’ Eeggie responded with 
warmth. ‘ She’s a good girl, Kitty; and she’s worth 
a fellow’s calling upon. I like her myself. She’s the 
very best sister any fellow ever hit upon.’ Which was 
perfectly true, much more so, indeed, than Mr. Eeggie 
himself ever fully realized. 

So he mounted the stairs in a bland good-humour, 
the unpleasantness of having to confess his marriage 
to Kathleen being now much mitigated by the con- 
soling consciousness that, if Kathleen chose, she could 
probably annex the richest American that moment in 
London. Most characteristically, too, Eeggie thought 
of it all entirely from that one point of view ; it wasn’t 
really a question of a husband for Kitty, but of an 
eligible brother-in-law for Eeginald Hesslegrave. 


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CHAPTER XX. 

A FAMILY COUNCIL. 

Reggie entered the room in the best of high spirits. 
They were confirmed by observing that Kitty had tears 
in her eyes — an excellent sign : she had evidently been 
crying. Hence Mr. Reggie acutely concluded that 
Mortimer must have proposed to her, and been re- 
fused for the moment, though not, of course, neces- 
sarily in a definitive fashion. Reggie was dimly 
aware, to be sure, as a brother may be, that there was 
Somebody at Venice ; and he had drawn for himself 
the vague and formless inference that this Somebody, 
as he mentally put it in his own dialect, had failed to 
come up to the scratch with Kitty. Hence these 
weepings. But, then, girls are so stupid ! If the 
fellow at Venice couldn’t be brought to propose, why, 
it was clearly Kitty’s duty, for her family’s sake, to 
accept at once so eligible an offer as Rufus Mortimer’s, 
especially when a brother could say, with Reggie, 

‘ La famille, c’est moi !’ Then her proper course 
shone forth with peculiar obviousness. 

So Reggie entered his sister’s room in the familiar 
fraternal mood of the man who isn’t gomg to put up 
with any feminine nonsense. 

Kathleen greeted him rather coolly. In point of 
fact, having just been deeply stirred, she was in no 
mood at the moment for receiving Reggie. She kept 
her eyes as much averted from her brother as possible, 
and strove to prevent them from catching Reggie’s at 
awkward angles. Still, Reggie could see very well 
she had been crying, and could observe from her 


A FAMILY COUNCIL 


215 


manner that she was a good deal agitated. That was 
all most satisfactory. He dropped into an easy-chair 
with a careless fraternal air ; and thinking it best to 
blurt the whole thing out at once without needless 
prologue, he looked across at her narrowly as he 
uttered the enigmatical words : 

‘ Well, Kitty, I’ve come to receive your congratula- 
tions.’ 

‘ Congratulations?’ Kathleen responded, taken aback. 
‘ On what, my dear boy ? Have they raised your 
salary ?’ 

' Not they !’ Eeggie answered, smiling. ‘ Catch ’em 
at it ! That’s all ! They never appreciate modest 
merit. Besides, I don’t take much stock in stock- 
brokfng. The game ain’t worth it, except, of course, 
for principals. No, Kitsy, it isn’t that. It’s some- 
thing much more important.’ He caressed his 
moustache. ‘ Can’t you guess,’ he said, ‘ what a 
man’s most likely to ask his sister to congratulate 
him on ?’ 

Kathleen’s fears rose high at once. When Eeggie 
wanted money, he addressed her as Kitty : but when 
it got to Kitsy, a most unusual diminutive of extreme 
affection, she felt sure he must mean to come down 
upon her for absolutely unprecedented advances. 

‘ You’re not engaged, are you, Eeggie ?’ she faltered 
out in a feeble voice. ‘ For if you are, I’m sure it’s very 
wrong indeed of you. You can’t keep yourself, so 
you’ve surely no right to think of burdening me with 
someone else also.’ 

Eeggie’s lip curled slightly. 

‘ What a girl you are !’ he cried with a faint dash of 
disdain. ‘ Taking such a low monetary point of view 
about everything ! One would think getting married 


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was a mere matter of £ s. d. Not a touch of senti- 
ment in it. No, Kitsy, it isn’t an engagement I want 
you to congratulate me on ; it’s something a vast deal 
more interesting and important.’ Reggie drew him- 
self up to his utmost height in his chair as he sat. 

‘ The fact is, Kitty, I’m already married.’ 

‘ Married !’ Kathleen exclaimed with a sudden burst 
of alarm. ‘ Oh, Reggie, what do you mean ? Who is 
it ? and when did you marry her ?’ 

‘ Florrie Clarke,’ Reggie answered, producing her 
photograph with just pride from his pocket — and, 
indeed, Florrie was a personable little body enough, 
whom anybody might be proud of from the point of 
view of external appearance. ‘ Who else could it be ? 
We were married on Wednesday.’ 

Kathleen gazed at the portrait for a moment in 
silence. Her heart misgave her. 

‘ Well, she looks a nice little thing,’ she said after 
an ominous pause ; ‘ and I should think a good girl, 
too : she’s certainly pretty. But why didn’t you tell 
me before, Reggie, and introduce your bride to me ?’ 

‘ One’s people are so unreasonable,’ Reggie answered, 
with a hasty gesture. ‘ I don’t blame it on yow, Kitsy ; 
I know you can’t help it ; it belongs to the race : it’s 
only the fixed habit of the vertebrate animals one calls 
one’s people.’ 

‘ Well, but she’s such a good match from one point 
of view,’ Kathleen went on, undoubtedly relieved to 
find Reggie had at least chosen a wife for himself from 
a well-to-do family ; for the name and the fame of 
Spider Clarke had already reached her ears — as, 
indeed, whose had they not ? ‘ Her people may not 

be very desirable acquaintances, so far as culture and 
manners go — I remember dear mother would never 


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let you bring them to her rooms while she lived — but 
at least they’re wealthy, and that’s always something. 
It will relieve you from responsibility. How on earth 
did you get Mr. Clarke to consent to the marriage ?’ 

‘ We didn’t get him,’ Keggie answered with careless 
ease. ‘ We took the liberty, in point of fact, to dis- 
pense with asking him. Charlie Owen gave her 
away ; and extremely paternal Charlie looked, I can 
tell you, as he stood up on his hind-legs in Kensington 
Church and did it.’ 

‘But you haven’t obtained Mr. Clarke’s consent!’ 
Kathleen cried, taken aback, and once more alarmed. 
‘ Well, how can you tell, then, that he’ll at all approve 
of it? Perhaps he’ll refuse to do anything to help 
you.’ 

‘ Commercial again !’ Reggie responded with an 
aggrieved air as of the poetical sentimentalist. ‘ In- 
grainedly commercial I You talk like a greengrocer. 
You can’t think of anything but the money aspect of 
the question. I call it sordid. Here’s your brother, 
Kitsy — your own and only brother — comes to you with 
his full heart to announce to you in his joy that he’s 
married to the sweetest, dearest, prettiest, cleverest, 
sauciest, most delicious little girl in all England ; and 
what do you do ? rush up to him, and kiss him, and 
rejoice with him, and congratulate him? Oh dear 
no ! Not a bit of it I That’s not your way. You 
begin by inquiring straight off what the lady’s worth, 
and debating whether or not her papa will be inclined 
to fork out the dibs for her. However, there’s a cure 
for all that, I’m jolly glad to say. Kitty, you’re 
behind the times. You don’t read the papers. You 
neglect the literature and the journalism of your 
country.’ 


2I8 


AT MARKET VALUE 


‘ What do you mean ?’ Kathleen cried, trembling, 
and suspecting now some nameless evil. ‘ It hasn’t 
been put in the papers ? Oh, Keggie, don’t say so ! 
You haven’t done anything dreadful and impossible, 
have you ?’ 

‘ Me ? Dear me, no, my dear child,’ Keggie an- 
swered airily. ‘I’m a model, myself, of all the 
domestic virtues. But the reason we didn’t ask old 
Clarke’s consent, my respected father-in-law’s, is 
simply and solely this — that the respected father-in-law 
in question happens to be this moment lying in gaol, 
awaiting his trial on a charge of fraud of the first 
magnitude. That is all, my dear Kitty.’ 

‘ Fraud !’ Kathleen exclaimed, drawing back. ‘ Oh, 
Keggie, you don’t mean it. I thought he was so rich. 
What could he want to commit fraud for ?’ 

‘ How do people get rich, I should like to know, if 
they don’t begin by being fraudulent?’ Keggie re- 
sponded with easy-going cynicism. ‘ But he ain’t 
rich ; that’s just it. Old Clarke’s gone busted. He's 
no more good, any way. He’s smashed eternally. 
Come a regular cropper, the Spider has. Precious 
awkward for poor Florrie !’ 

‘But perhaps he’s innocent,’ Kathleen cried, clutch- 
ing at a last straw. ‘ We should always think every- 
body innocent, dear mother used to say, till they’re 
proved to be guilty.’ 

‘ Perhaps you’re innocent,’ Keggie echoed in a tone 
of half disgust, half amusement. ‘ Very innocent in- 
deed. As innocent as they make ’em. But it won’t 
do, Kitsy. It isn’t good enough. Old Clarke’s 
smashed up. He’s gone a juicy one. Smashed him- 
self, they say, over the Axminster estate. But any- 
how, he’s smashed ; not a piece of him left whole. 


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Might have been better, don’t you know, if he could 
have managed to clear out a good month ago to Buenos 
Ayres ; but as it is, not a penny ; not a dot ; not a 
stiver. Twenty years is what he’ll get. Florrie’s 
awfully cut up about it.’ 

‘ And you’ve married her all the same ?’ Kathleen 
cried, clasping her hands, not without a certain in- 
ternal tinge of pride, after all, that Beggie should at 
least have behaved like a gentleman. 

Keggie drew himself up once more, and looked 
important. He stroked his moustache still more 
fondly than ever. Consciousness of rectitude shone 
from every line in his sleek round face. 

‘Why, of course I have,’ he answered. ‘What else 
could a fellow do ? I hope I’m a gentleman. I went 
to her at Eutland Gate — telegram down to the City — 
“ Come at once — deepest distress — must see you. — 
Floeeie.” And there I found the poor dear child in 
an agony of misery, crying and teariug her hair, which 
is short and black and one of her chief attractions. 
Seems she was just thrown overboard by a wretch of 
a cavalry man, whom her father and mother had 
compelled her to accept against her will instead of 
me. “ Florrie,” said I, “forget him, and come back 
to the arms of your one true lover.” She flew to me 
like a bird, and nestled on my shoulder. “ I’d marry 
you,” said I, “if your father was ten thousand times 
a fraudulent bankrupt.” And marry her I just did. 
So there’s the long and the short of it.’ 

‘You acted quite right,’ Kathleen said, unable to 
resist a woman’s natural approbation for the man who 
follows the impulse of his better nature. 

Keggie seized his one chance. This was the thin 
end of the wedge. 


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‘ So I think,’ he said complacently. ‘ And now the 
question is, how the dickens am I to pull through? 
I mean, what’s to be done about ways and means ? 
For of course, as you justly say, if I can’t support 
myself, far less can I support myself and Florrie also.’ 

‘But you should have thought of that beforehand,’ 
Kathleen put in, drawing back. 

It began to strike her that, after all, there was 
nothing so self-devoted in marrying a girl at a pinch, 
if you propose to make your sister bear the burden of 
supporting her. 

Thereupon they fell at once into committee of ways 
and means, relieved now and again by frequent declara- 
tions on Keggie’s part that a sweeter, dearer, more 
-bewitching girl than Florrie didn’t really exist on the 
entire land- surface of this oblate spheroid. 

Kathleen was glad he was «o well suited with Spider 
Clarke’s daughter, though she doubted the stock ; and 
then, like a good woman that she was, reproached her- 
self bitterly in her own mind for doubting it. But the 
longer they stuck at it, the less they seemed to arrive 
at any fixed decision. All Eeggie could assert was his 
own absolute incapacity to earn a penny more than he 
was at present earning, coupled with the pleasing 
information that his exchequer was just now in its 
normally flaccid and depleted condition, and that his 
bills were (as always) in excess of his expectations. 
As for the Clarkes, Eeggie observed with a complacent 
smile, they were simply, stone-broke ; a most jammy 
affair ; not a penny need be looked for from that 
direction. The old man had spent his tin as fast as 
he made it, and faster ; and now the crash had come, 
there were liabilities considerably in excess of the 
assets — a piece of information the technical sound of 


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221 


I which pleased Reggie so immensely that he repeated 
it over several times in various contexts for his sister’s 
edification. 

At last, however, he ventured bit by bit upon a 
tentative suggestion. 

‘ There’s only one way out of it,’ he said, glancing 
sideways at Kathleen, ‘ and that lies entirely with you. 
If my creditors once learn I’ve got married without 
prospects, and to the Spider’s daughter, why, they’ll 
simply drop down on me. Scrunch, scrunch, they’ll 
crush me. They’ll press me for payment till I’m half 
mad with worry ; and then I shall go and do one of two 
things — Waterloo Bridge or the Bankruptcy Court.’ 

‘ Oh, Reggie,’ Kathleen cried, ‘ not Waterloo Bridge ! 
How cruel ! how wicked of you !’ 

Reggie saw his cue at once. That was the way, 
then, to work it. He enlarged forthwith upon the 
nothingness and hollowness of this present life, and the 
ease of ending it, as the poet observes, with a bare 
bodkin. For Florrie’s sake, indeed, he could have 
wished it might be otherwise ; but if no work were 
forthcoming, it would be easier for Florrie to starve 
alone than to starve in company. He dwelt upon 
these themes till he had thoroughly succeeded in 
frightening poor Kathleen. Then he turned upon her 
once more. ' 

‘And if you chose,’ he cried bitterly, ‘you could 
make it all right for me in a single minute.’ 

‘ How so ?’ Kathleen asked, trembling. 

‘ Why, how about Mortimer ?’ Reggie cried, spring- 
ing a mine upon her. 

‘ Mortimer ?’ Kathleen repeated. ‘ How about Mr. 
Mortimer ? Why, what on earth has he to do with 
the matter, Reggie ?’ 


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‘Oh, you needn’t look such a blessed innocent,’ 
Eeggie answered, smiling. ‘ I know all about Mor- 
timer. He’d propose to you like a shot, if only you’d 
have him. And for your family’s sake, I say, it’s your 
duty to have him. You know he would, as well as I 
do. So that’s about the size of it.’ 

‘ Oh, Eeggie, how can you ?’ Kathleen cried, the 
tears rising to her eyes. ‘ I could never marry him.’ 

‘ That’s just as you like,’ Eeggie answered calmly. 
‘ I don’t want to bias you. If you prefer me to go 
over Waterloo Bridge, I’m sure I’ve no objection. I 
don’t desire to be selfish, like some other people, and 
insist on having my own way, no matter who suffers 
for it. It’s a very easy thing to take a header over 
the bridge in this nice warm weather. Only, for poor 
Florrie’s sake, I confess I should have preferred to 
fight it out in this world a little longer.’ 

‘ But I’m not selfish,’ Kathleen cried, hit on her 
tenderest point. ‘ Oh, Eeggie, don’t say you think 
me selfish. I’d do anything to serve you, dear, except 
only that. But that one thing I can’t. Oh, Eeggie, 
don’t ask it of me.’ 

She spoke with so much earnestness that Eeggie 
saw he had a chance of gaining his point if he went 
on with it resolutely. So he answered in a sullen 
voice : 

‘ Oh yes, of course ; you’d do anything on earth 
except the one thing that’s any use to try. That’s 
always the way with people. They’d kill themselves 
to help you ; but they won’t stretch out a hand in the 
only direction possible. You’d sooner see your brother 
starve, or drive him to suicide, than make an effort to 
help him by marrying Eufus Mortimer.’ 

‘ Eeggie,’ Kathleen exclaimed, driven to bay, ‘ you 


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223 


don’t understand. I love somebody else ; that’s why 
I can’t marry him.’ 

‘ So I gathered,’ Beggie answered with perfect cool- 
ness. ‘ And the somebody else won’t come up to the 
scratch ; so you may as well regard him as a vanish- 
ing factor, as we say in the City. He’s out of the 
running. Well, then accept it. What’s the matter 
with Eufus Mortimer ? that’s what I want to know. 
He’s rich ; he’s a gentleman ; he’s good-looking ; he’s 
artistic ; he’s everything else on earth any woman 
could want, except — well, except that he’s not the 
other fellow. . Are you going to let your brother go 
and die before your eyes, just because you won’t take 
a man any girl but you would be delighted to have a 
chance of ?’ 

‘Oh, Beggie, how dreadful of you!’ Kathleen cried. 
‘ I can’t bear to hear you speak of it all as if it were a 
mere matter of business arrangement. I love the other 
man ; I don’t love Mr. Mortimer.’ 

‘ He’s a very good fellow,’ Beggie answered, hand 
on lip once more. ‘ If only you made up your mind 
to it, you’d soon learn to like him.’ 

‘ I like him already,’ Kathleen admitted frankly. 
‘He’s a very nice fellow ; a dear good fellow ; so kind, 
so generous, so chivalrous, so unselfish.’ 

‘ Well, there you are,’ Beggie replied, folding his 
hands resignedly. ‘ If you feel like that towards him 
already, why, of course, if you got engaged, you’d very 
soon be in love with him.’ 

‘ I could never be out of love with the other,’ Kath- 
leen faltered, half wavering. 

‘ That’s quite unimportant,’ Beggie answered with 
equal frankness. ‘ As long as you feel you can marry 
Mortimer, I’d leave the other man to stand his even 


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chance, like Jamie in the poem. You wouldn’t be the 
first woman — nor the last by a long chalk — who has 
married her second best, and jogged along very well 
with him.’ 

‘ I’m afraid that’s true,’ Kathleen responded, sighing. 
And indeed it was. ’Tis the tragedy of our century. 

‘ Well, I’m going soon,’ Eeggie observed, starting 
up with a theatrical air. . ‘ And if you should happen 
to hear the newsboys calling out to-morrow morning, 
‘‘ Shockin’ Suicide of a Gentleman from Waterloo 
Bridge !” don’t let it give you a turn. I’m not worth 
bothering about.’ 

‘Eeggie,’ Kathleen cried, clinging to him, ‘you 
mustn’t go like that. I am afraid to let you go. You 
make me so frightened. Promise me you’ll do nothing 
silly till you’ve seen me again. If you will, I’ll think 
it over, and try what I can to help you. But you 
must promise me faithfully. Oh, Eeggie, do promise 
me.’ 

‘ I don’t know whether I can,’ Eeggie responded 
dubiously. 

‘ You must,’ Kathleen exclaimed. ‘ Oh, Eeggie, you 
frighten me. Bo promise me you won’t, and I’ll try 
to think it over.’ 

‘Well, I’ll wait till to-morrow, and then I’ll see 
you again,’ Eeggie answered doggedly. ‘ But, mind, I 
only say till I see you to-morrow.’ 

Kathleen trembled all over. 

‘ Very well, dear,’ she answered. He was her only 
brother, and with that wonderful tie of blood which 
binds us all to the foolishest or worst of mankind, she 
was very, very fond of him. 

Eeggie turned from the threshold with his hand on 
the door-plate. 


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225 


‘ Oh, by the way,’ he said casually, ‘ you don’t 
happen to have such a thing as a couple of sovereigns 
you could lend me, just for Florrie’s immediate neces- 
sities ; bread and cheese, and so forth ; till we’ve 
decided this question, and I know whether I’m to go 
over the bridge or not, and whether her address in 
future is to be Kensington Workhouse ?’ 

Kathleen pulled out her scanty purse, now entirely 
replenished by her own earnings as an artist, and drew 
from it two sovereigns, which she handed him regret- 
fully. She had made up her mind a hundred times 
over already she would never be silly enough to lend 
him money again ; and here, for the hundred and 
first time, she found herself doing it. 

^Thanks,’ Keggie said with careless ease, dropping 
them into his waistcoat pocket, as though money were 
nothing to him. ‘ Well, good-evening, Kitsy. Think 
it over by yourself; and don’t let your sentimental 
fancy drive your brother to despair ; that’s all I beg 
of you.’ 

After which, being worn out with this painful inter- 
view, and feeling the need of rest and amusement, he 
stopped at the box office of the Court Theatre on his 
way down town, and engaged two stalls for that night 
for himself and Florrie. 


CHAPTEE XXI. 

THE WISE WOMAN. 

As soon as Eeggie was gone, poor Kathleen delivered 
herself over to pure unadulterated searchings of spirit. 
The world, indeed, is pretty equally divided between 

15 


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people who have no scruples of conscience at all, and 
people who allow their scruples of conscience to run 
away with them. Now, Kathleen Hesslegrave be- 
longed to the latter unfortunate self-torturing class. 
She had terrible fears of her own as to what she 
should do about Eeggie. Of course, no outsider who 
knew Mr. Keginald’s character as well as she did 
would ever for a moment have been silly enough to 
believe he really contemplated suicide ; he was far too 
much of a physical and moral coward ever to dream 
of jumping over Waterloo Bridge ; for though it may 
be cowardly in one sense to run away from the respon- 
sibilities and difficulties of life, yet none the less it is 
often still deeper cowardice that prevents many people 
from having recourse to that cowardly refuge. To 
Kathleen, however, the danger envisaged itself as a 
real and menacing one. When it comes to one’s own 
relations, one is more credulous in these matters, and 
more timorous of giving the slightest handle for 
offence. The threat of suicide is the easiest form of 
thumbscrew that a selfish, unscrupulous, and weak- 
minded lad can apply to the moral feelings of his 
relations. 

Moreover, Beggie had happened upon a fortunate 
moment. When he called that day, Kathleen had 
just been deeply impressed byKufus Mortimer’s good- 
ness and generosity ; indeed, she had said to herself, 
as Kufus Mortimer left the room : ‘ If only I had 
never met Arnold Willoughby, I really believe I could 
have loved that man dearly.’ So when Reggie began 
to throw out his dark hints of approaching suicide, 
Kathleen seriously debated in her own mind whether 
or not it was her duty to save him from such a fate by 
marrying the man who had shown himself so truly 


THE WISE WOMAN 


227 


and disinterestedly devoted to her. All that night, 
she lay awake and reasoned with herself wearily. 
Keggie wasn’t worth all the trouble she bestowed upon 
him. Early next morning she rose, and wrote him in 
haste half a dozen long letters, one after the other, all 
of which she tore up as soon as she had finished 
them. It is so hard to know what to do in such diffi- 
cult circumstances. Kathleen wondered and waited 
and argued with her own heart, and worried her poor 
conscience with interminable questions. 

After breakfast, a light burst upon her. Why not 
go and talk the whole matter over with Mrs. Irving ? 
Now, Mrs. Irving was a friend whose acquaintance she 
had made some years before on the quays at Venice ; 
a painter like herself, older, and cleverer, and a great 
deal more successful. Her face was beautiful, Kath- 
leen always thought, with the beauty of holiness ; a 
chastened and saddened face, with marks of its past 
stamped deep upon its features. Her silvery hair was 
prematurely gray ; but the light in her eye showed 
her younger by a decade than one might otherwise 
have judged her. It was a happy inspiration on 
Kathleen’s part to go to her ; for when a girl is in 
doubt, she can seldom do better than take the advice 
of some older woman in whom she has confidence, and 
who can look at the matter at issue from the im- 
personal standpoint. ’Tis that very impersonality 
that is so important an element in all these questions ; 
you get rid of the constant disturbing factor of your 
own emotions. 

Now, a certain halo of mystery always surrounded 
Mrs. Irving. Who Mr. Irving was, or whether, indeed, 
there was still or was not a Mr. Irving at all, Kathleen 
never knew. Whenever their talk had approached 


228 


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that topic, Kathleen noticed that her friend glided 
carefully over the thin ice in the opposite direction, 
and distracted the conversation by imperceptible 
degrees from Mr. Irving’s neighbourhood. Neverthe- 
less, there had been always some surmise and gossip 
about the hypothetical husband at Venetian tea-tables ; 
for you may take it as an invariable rule in life, that 
whenever a woman, no matter how innocently, lives 
apart from her husband, she will always abide under 
the faint shadow of a social cloud ; let it be twenty 
times his fault, and twenty times her misfortune, yet 
it is she, and not he, who will have to pay the price 
for it. So the petty world of English Venice had 
always looked a little askance at Mrs. Irving as ‘a 
woman, don’t you know, who’s living apart from her 
husband ’ — and then, with an ugly sneer — ‘ that is to 
say, if she has one.’ But to Kathleen, the beautiful 
woman with the prematurely gray hair was simply the 
dearest and kindest of friends, the most trustworthy 
person she had ever come across. 

It was to Mrs. Irving, then, that Kathleen went at 
once to impart her difficulty about Reggie and Rufus 
Mortimer. Her friend listened to her with tender 
interest and instinctive sympathy. As soon as Kath- 
leen had finished, the elder woman rose and kissed her 
forehead affectionately. 

‘ Now tell me, dear,’ she said, gazing into Kathleen’s 
frank eyes, ‘ if your sailor were to come back to you, 
would you love him still?’ For Kathleen had only 
described Arnold Willoughby’s reasons for leaving 
Venice in the most general terms, and had never 
betrayed his secret as to the Earldom of Axminster. 

‘ I love him now, as it is,’ Kathleen answered can- 
didly : ‘ of course I should love him then. I love him 


THE WISE WOMAN 


229 


better than I did before he left me, Mrs. Irving. I 
seem to love him more the longer he stays away from 
me.’ 

‘ And you don’t love Mr. Mortimer ?’ Mrs. Irving 
said once more. 

‘No,’ Kathleen answered. ‘ I only like him and 
respect him immensely. But Eeggie seems to think 
that’s all that’s necessary.’ 

The security was insufficient ; but ’tis so that 
good women will bow to the opinion of their men 
relations. Mrs. Irving took the girl’s two hands 
between her own caressingly. A beautiful middle- 
aged woman, with soft wavy hair, and that chastened 
loveliness which comes to beautiful women with the 
touch of a great sorrow, she revolted in soul against 
this fraternal despotism. 

‘Keggie!’ she cried with a little contempt in her 
tone. ‘ What has Beggie to do with it ? It’s your- 
self and the two men and the essential truth of things 
you have to reckon with first. Kathleen, dear Kath- 
leen, never believe that specious falsehood people 
sometimes would foist upon you about the unselfish- 
ness of marrying a man you don’t really love, for the 
sake of your family. It isn’t unselfishness at all ; it’s 
injustice, cruelty, moral cowardice, infamy. The 
most wrong thing any woman can do in life is to sell 
herself for money where her heart is untouched. It’s 
not merely wrong ; it’s disgrace ; it’s dishonour. Out 
of the bitterness of my heart, my mouth speaketh. 
Shall I tell you my own story, dear ? It happened in 
this way. When I was young, very young — only just 
seventeen — my mother was left with a tiny little 
income. It was almost less than would keep us three 
alive, herself and me and my sister Olive. Then 


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Colonel Irving saw me, and was taken with me for 
the moment; he was a very rich man, years older 
than myself, and one of the biggest officials on 
the Council in India. He proposed to me. I was 
frightened, though, girl-like, I was flattered ; and I 
told my mother. Instead of telling me to avoid the 
snare, she begged and prayed me to accept him. 

‘ ‘‘ But I don’t love him,” I said. 

‘ “ You will,” my mother answered. 

‘ I knew I was doing wrong ; but when one’s only 
seventeen, one hardly quite realizes that when you 
marry once you marry for a lifetime. I accepted 
him at last, under that horrid mistaken notion that 
I was sacrificing myself nobly for my mother’s sake, 
and was so very unselfish. He took me out to India. 
For a year or two we lived together, not happily, 
indeed — I can never say it was happily, but without 
open rupture. Then Colonel Irving saw plainly that, 
though he had bought me and paid for me, I didn’t 
and couldn’t love him. I did my best, it’s true, to 
carry out as far as I could that wicked and cruel 
bargain ; I tried to like him ; I tried to act fairly to 
him. But all the time I felt it was degradation, 
misery, pollution, wickedness. And he saw it too. I 
have no word of blame for him. At last, one morning, 
he disappeared suddenly, and left a note behind him. 
He had gone off to Europe, and — somebody else had 
gone with him.’ 

‘ And then ?’ Kathleen asked, bending forward. 

‘Well, then, dear, I felt it was all over, and I knew 
it was my fault, because I hadn’t had the moral courage 
at first to say no outright to him. I did what no 
woman ought ever to do — let him take my hand when 
my heart was not his ; and I had to pay the penalty 


THE WISE WOMAN 


231 


of it. And so will you, too, if you do as I did. One 
way or the other, you will have to pay the penalty. 
He was just to me after his lights ; severely just — I 
might almost say generous ; he offered to make me an 
allowance of half his income. But I wrote back and 
said no. I would never again take a penny that was 
his. I would earn my own living. So I began at art, 
in a small way at first ; and I worked on at it with a 
will till I could keep myself easily. Then I did more 
than that. I worked and saved till I could send him 
one day a cheque for every penny he had ever spent 
upon me. He refused to receive it. I refused to 
take it back. I sent the money, in his name, in 
gold, to his banker’s. He wouldn’t touch it. And 
there it lies to this day, and neither of us will 
claim it.’ 

‘ That was splendid of you !’ Kathleen cried. 

‘ No, my dear; it was just. Nothing more than bare 
justice. I had made a hateful bargain, which no 
woman should ever make, for the sake of her own 
dignity, her own purity, her own honour ; and I was 
bound to do the best I could do to unmake it. But I 
tell you all this now, that you may see for yourself 
how wrong it is for any woman to do as I did ; that 
you may learn to avoid my mistake betimes, Beggie 
or no Eeggie, while it may yet be avoided.’ 

‘ You’re right,’ Kathleen said, drawing back with a 
sudden flash of conviction. ‘It’s debasing and degrad- 
ing, when one fairly faces it. But what am I to do ? 
Eeggie declares if I don’t marry Mr. Mortimer he’ll 
commit suicide instantly. He’s in a dreadful state of 
mind. I had to make him promise last night he 
wouldn’t do anything rash till he saw me to-day ; and 
even now I don’t know what he may have done mean- 


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while, as soon as he got alone, and was left by himself 
with his remorse and misery.’ 

‘ Beggie !’ Mrs. Irving exclaimed, with a sudden 
melodious drop from the sublime to the ridiculous. 
‘ Oh, my dear, don’t you trouble your head for a 
moment about him. He’s as right as ninepence. He’s 
not going to commit suicide. Eemorse and misery ! 
Why, I was at the Court Theatre in the boxes last 
night, and there, if you please, was Master Beggie in 
the stalls, with a pretty young woman, close-cropped 
and black-haired, with a cheek like a ripe peach, who, 
I suppose, was his Florrie. They were eating Neapo- 
litan ices all through the interlude, and neither of 
them seemed to have the slightest intention of com- 
mitting suicide in the immediate future.’ 

That was a fortunate accident for Kathleen. It 
relieved her mind immensely for the moment ; it 
decided her that Mrs. Irving’s advice was sound, and 
that she would be doing injustice to her own higher 
nature if, for Beggie’ s sake, she accepted the man she 
didn’t love, to the exclusion of the man she loved so 
dearly. 

But while Kathleen was discussing this matter thus 
earnestly with Mrs. Irving, her brother Beggie, on his 
way down to the City, had managed to drop in for a 
few minutes’ conversation with Bufus Mortimer at his 
house in Great Stanhope Street. He had called, 
indeed, for a double diplomatic purpose, cloaked 
beneath a desire to see Mortimer at dinner with his 
wife on Saturday. 

‘ Our rooms are small,’ Beggie said airily, with the 
consummate grace of a great gentleman extending an 
invitation to a lordly banquet in his ancestral halls ; 

‘ we’ve hardly space for ourselves even to turn about 


THE WISE WOMAN 


233 


in them; and as to swinging a cat, why, it would 
almost amount to culpable cruelty. But we should be 
delighted to see you at our annexe^ the Criterion — first 
door on the right as you enter the big gate — dinner 
a la carte^ best of its kind in London. Half-past 
seven, did I say ? Yes, that will suit us admirably. 
Florrie’s longing to see you, I’ve told her so much 
about you.’ 

‘Why?’ Mortimer asked, with a smile, half guessing 
the reason himself. 

Keggie smirked and hesitated. 

‘ Well, I thought it not improbable from what I saw 
and heard,’ he answered at last with affected delicacy, 
‘ that we might — in future — under certain contingencies 
— see a good deal more of you.’ 

And he looked at his man meaningly. 

Kufus Mortimer was reserved, as is the American 
habit ; but he couldn’t help following out this decided 
trail. By dexterous side-hints, he began questioning 
Eeggie as to Kathleen’s intentions; whereupon Keggie, 
much rejoiced that Mortimer should so easily fall into 
his open trap, made answer in the direction that best 
suited his own interests. He rendered it tolerably 
clear by obscure suggestions that Kathleen had once 
been in love, and still considered herself to be so ; but 
that, in her brother’s opinion, the affection was wear- 
ing out, was by no means profound, and might be 
easily overcome ; moreover, that she cherished for 
Kufus Mortimer himself a feeling which was capable 
of indefinite intensification. All this Keggie hinted at 
great length in the most roundabout way ; but he left 
in the end no doubt at all upon Kufus Mortimer’s 
mind as to his real meaning. By the time Mr. Keginald 
rose to go, Mortimer was quite convinced that he 


234 


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might still win Kathleen’s heart, and that her brother 
would be a most powerful auxiliary in his campaign, 
to have secured whose good-will was no slight advan- 
tage. 

At the door Eeggie paused. 

‘ Dear me !’ he said, feeling abstractedly in his 
waistcoat pocket ; ‘ I’ve left my purse at home, and 
I meant to take a cab. I’m late already, and now 
I’ll have to tramp it. That’s a dreadful nuisance, 
for they’re death on punctuality at our office in the 
City.’ 

‘ Can I lend you a few shillings ?’ the unsuspecting 
American asked, too innocent to see through Mr. 
Keginald’s peculiar tactics. 

‘ Oh, thanks, awfully,’ Eeggie answered in his non- 
chalant way, as if it were the smallest matter in the 
world. ‘ I should be glad of a sovereign. I can pay it 
back on Saturday when we meet at the Criterion.’ 

‘ I’ve nothing less than a fiver,’ Mortimer observed, 
drawing it out. 

Eeggie’ s hands closed over the piece of paper like a 
shot. 

‘Oh, it’s all the same,’ he replied, with a smile he 
could hardly suppress, sticking it carelessly into his 
pocket. ‘ I’m awfully obliged to you. It’s so awkward 
to go out without one’s purse in London. Ta-ta, then, 
till Saturday.’ 

‘He’s going to be my brother-in-law,’ Eeggie thought 
complacently to himself as he descended the stairs ; 
‘ and, after all, a gentleman may borrow any day from 
his brother-in-law.’ 

So firmly did he act upon this prospective relation- 
ship, indeed, that this was only the first of many suc- 
cessive fivers, duly entered in Eufus Mortimer’s book 


THE WISE WOMAN 


235 


of expenditure as ‘ Advanced on loan to K. H.’s 
brother.’ But notes of their repayment on the credit 
side were strangely absent. 

Nay, so much elated was the honest-hearted young 
American at this fraternal visit, with the opportunity 
it afforded him of doing some slight service to a 
member of Kathleen’s family, that, as soon as Reggie 
was gone, he sat down and indited a letter full of love 
and hope to Kathleen herself, declaring that he would 
honestly do his best to find Arnold Willoughby, but 
asking with much fervour whether, if he failed in that 
quest, there would yet be any chance for any other 
suitor. He wrote it in a white heat of passionate 
devotion. 

It was a letter that Kathleen could not read 
without tears in her eyes; for no woman is unsus- 
ceptible to the pleasure of receiving a declaration of 
love, couched in ardent terms, from a man she can 
respect and admire, even if she cannot accept him. 
But she sat down, none the less, and answered it at 
once, with tenderness and tact, in the decided nega- 
tive. 

‘ Your letter has touched me deeply,’ she said, ‘ as 
all your kindness always does ; and if I could say yes 
to any man, apart from Him, I could say yes to you, 
dear Mr. Mortimer. If I had never met Him, I might 
perhaps have loved you dearly. But I have loved one 
man too well in my time ever to love a second ; and 
whether I find him again or not, my mind is quite 
made up — I cannot and will not give myself to any 
other. I speak to you frankly, because from the very 
first you have known my secret, and because I can 
trust and respect and like you. But if ever I meet 


236 


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him again, I shall be his, and his only ; and his only 
I must be if I never again meet him.’ 

Mortimer read the letter with dim eyes; then he 
folded it up with reverence, and placed it securely in 
a leather case in his pocket. There he carried it for 
many days, and often looked at it. Eejection though 
it was, it yet gave him a strange delight to read over 
and over again those simple words : 

‘ If I could say yes to any man, apart from Him, I 
could say yes to you, dear Mr. Mortimer.^ 


CHAPTEK XXII. 

ISLES OF WINTER. 

Arnold Willoughby had a strong constitution ; but 
that second summer in the Northern seas told upon 
his health even more seriously than all his previous 
seafaring. Perhaps it was the result of his great dis- 
appointment ; perhaps it was the sense of nothing left 
in this life to live for ; but, at any rate, he grew thm and 
weak, and lost heart for his work, in a way that was 
unusual with so vigorous a sailor. The skipper, as he 
looked at him, thought Willoughby wouldn’t ever be 
fit for another sealing voyage — thought it in that hard, 
purely objective way that is habitual to skippers in 
dealing with seamen. And Arnold Willoughby him- 
self began to recognise the fact that he was growing 
ill and worn with these continued hardships. Life 
had been a failure for him. His day was over. He 
was one of those, he feared, who must go to the wall 


ISLES OF WINTER 


237 


in the ceaseless struggle for life which nature imposes 
upon us. 

But, at any rate, he would go to the wall like a man 
— he would live or die on his own poor earnings. He 
never went back for a moment upon the principles he 
had established for himself in early manhood. From 
the day when he saw his cousin Algy’s claim admitted 
in full by the House of Lords, he considered himself 
as nothing more than Arnold Willoughby, an able- 
bodied seaman — and not even that now, as things 
were taking him. Yet he was himself, for all that. 
Even though you go sealing on the Greenland coasts, 
you can’t quite get rid of the cultivated habits and 
tastes of a gentleman. Arnold Willoughby, for his 
part, never desired to get rid of them. He loved the 
things of the mind in spite of everything. During his 
earlier years of apprenticeship to the perils of the sea, 
he had yearned for art ; now he had given up art for 
the moment, he took in its place to literature. The 
sailors in the fo’c’sle of the Sheriff Ivory, of Dundee, 
were much amused from time to time at Willoughby’s 
rummy way of writing at odd moments in a pocket- 
book he kept by him ; and, indeed, at all spare hours 
he was engaged by himself in a curious piece of work 
whose meaning and import the average mariner’s mind 
could hardly fathom. He was deciphering and translat- 
ing the Elizabethan English sailor’s manuscript which 
he had picked up by accident in the little shop at Venice. 

He did it merely to please himself ; and therefore 
he was able to spend a great deal more time and 
trouble over doing it to perfection than he could 
possibly have spent if he were one of the miserable 
drudges who live by the professional pursuit of letters 
under our hard-faced regime. He translated it care- 


238 


AT MARKET VALUE 


fully, lovingly, laboriously. Day after day in his 
spare moments he took out a page at a time, and 
transcribed and Englished it with studious pains in 
his little pocket note-book. For two seasons he had 
gone on with this amateur authorship, if such it 
might be called ; and towards the end of the second 
he had pretty fairly finished his allotted taskwork. 

But the fo’c’sle of a sealer in full pursuit of oil is 
by no means an ideal place for literary composition. 
Many a time and oft Arnold was interrupted by rude 
pleasantries or angry calls ; many a time he was 
delayed by the impossibility of finding room for a few 
minutes’ work even on so humble a basis. At last, 
one afternoon, towards the close of the sealiug season, 
he was told off with a dozen other men for a run in a 
boat down the ice-bound coast in search of fresh seal- 
ing-grounds. His party were on the look-out for 
Greenland seals, which usually bask and flounder in 
the sun on the blocks in ice-floes ; and they had rowed 
to a considerable distance from their ship without 
perceiving any ‘ fish,’ as the sealers call them. Their 
road lay through a floating mass of blue crystalline 
ice-blocks. At last the pack grew too thick for them 
to penetrate any further, and the bo’sun in charge, 
blowing his whistle from the stern, gave the word to 
return to the Sheriff Ivory, They rowed back again 
about half a knot, in full sight of their ship, when it 
became gradually apparent that they were becoming 
surrounded by icebergs. A change in the wind 
brought them along unexpectedly. One after another, 
the great white mountains loomed up and approached 
them from all sides, apparently sailing in every direc- 
tion at once, though really, of course, only veering 
with the breeze from different quarters in the same 


ISLES OF WINTER 


239 


general direction. The bo’sun looked at them with 
some dislike. ‘ Ah doan’t care for bergs,’ he said in 
his thick Sunderland dialect. ‘ Tha’ve got naw pilot 
aboord.’ And, indeed, the icebergs seemed to be drift- 
ing in every direction, hither and thither at random, 
without much trace of a rudder. Closer and closer 
they drew, those huge glacial islands, two large ones 
in particular almost blocking the way to the ship in 
front of them. The bo’sun looked at them again. 
‘ Toorn her aboot, boys,’ he said once more in a very 
decided way. ‘ Easy all, bow side : row like blazes, 
you oother uns ! Ah’m thinkin’ we’ll naw be able to 
break through them by that quarter.’ 

The men turned the boat instantly in obedience to 
his word, and began rowing for their lives in the 
opposite direction. It was away from the ship ; but, 
in their present strait, the first thing to be thought of 
was avoiding the pressing danger from the icebergs 
at all hazards. By-and-by the bo’sun spoke again. 
‘ Ah’m thinkin’,’ he said slowly, ‘ tha’re toornin’ them- 
sel’s this way, mates.’ 

Arnold Willoughby glanced round. It was only too 
true. The icebergs, which were two enormous blocks 
of white shimmering crystal, half a mile or more in 
length, had shifted their course somewhat, and were 
now coming together, apparently both behind and in 
front of them. The boat lay helpless in a narrow 
channel of blue water between the high walls of ice 
that glistened in the sun like chalk cliffs in August. 
At the rate the bergs were moving, it would take only 
some ten or twelve minutes for them to shock and 
shiver against one another’s sides. The prospect was 
appalling. Human arms could hardly carry the boat 
free of their point of contact before they finally 


240 


AT MARKET VALUE 


collided. In that moment of danger, not a word was 
spoken. Every man saw the peril for himself at once, 
and bent forward to the long sweeps with terrible in- 
tensity of energy. Meanwhile, those vast moving 
islands of ice came resistlessly on, now sailing ahead 
for a moment before a gust of wind, now halting and 
veering again with some slight change in the breeze. 
Yet, on the whole, they drew steadily nearer and 
nearer, till at last Arnold Willoughby, looking up, 
saw the green crystal mountains rising almost sheer 
above their heads to the terrific height of several 
hundred feet like huge cliffs of alabaster. 

‘ Noo look oot, boys,’ the bo’sun cried in a solemn 
voice of warning. ‘ Tha’ll strike afore long.’ And 
every eye in the boat was fixed at once, as he spoke, 
on the approaching monsters. 

Scarcely room was left between them for the boat 
to pass out ; and she was still many yards from the 
point where the blue channel between the bergs began 
to widen again. A sort of isthmus of water, a narrow 
open strait, intervened between them and the wider 
part of the interval. Two clashing capes of ice 
obstructed it. On and on came the great mountains 
of glistening white crystal, tall, terrible, beautiful, in 
irresistible energy. The men crouched and cowered. 
Arnold Willoughby knew their last moment had come. 
There was no way out of it now. In another second 
the bergs would crash together with a thunder of the 
sea ; their little cock-boat would be shivered to frag- 
ments before the mighty masses of the jarring ice- 
mountains ; and they themselves, mere atoms, would 
be crushed to a pulp as instantly and unconsciously as 
an ant is crushed under the wheel of a carriage. Not 
a man tried to pull another stroke at the oars. Every 


ISLES OF WINTER 


241 


eye was riveted on the horrible moving deaths. 
Their arms were as if paralyzed. They could but look 
and look, awaiting their end in speechless terror. 

At that awful moment, just before the unconscious 
masses struck and shivered into pieces, a flood of 
strange thought broke at once over Arnold Wil- 
loughby’s mind. And it summed itself up in the 
thousandfold repetition of the one word Kathleen, 
Kathleen, Kathleen, Kathleen. 

He thought it over and over again, in a sudden 
agony of penitence. With a rush, it burst in upon 
him that he had done wrong, grievously wrong, to be 
so hasty and impulsive. What misery he might have 
caused her ! What injury he might have inflicted ! 
After all, no man can ever be quite certain even in his 
interpretation of the most seemingly irresistible facts. 
What wrong he might have done her — ah, heaven, 
now irrevocable ! Irrevocable ! Irrevocable ! For 
the mighty masses of ice stood above them like pre- 
cipices on the brink of falling ; and in one second 
more they would shock together 

Crash! Crash! Crash! Even before he had finished 
thinking it, a noise like thunder, or the loud rumble of 
an earthquake, deafened their ears with its roar, 
redoubled and ingeminated. The bergs had met and 
clashed together in very truth, and all nature seemed 
to clash with them. A horrible boiling and seething 
of the water around them ! A fearful shower of ice 
shot upon them by tons ! And then, just before 
Arnold Willoughby closed his eyes and ceased to think 
or feel, he was dimly aware of some huge body from 
above crushing and mangling him helplessly. Pains 
darted through him with fierce spasms ; and then all 
was silence. 


16 


242 


AT MARKET VALUE 


Half an hour passed away before Arnold, lying stiff, 
was again conscious of anything. By that time he 
opened his eyes, and heard a voice saying gruffly : 

‘ Why, Willoughby ain’t killed neither ! He’s a- 
lookin’ about him.’ 

At sound of the voice, which came from one of his 
fellow-sailors, Arnold strove to raise himself on his 
arm. As he did so another terrible shoot of pain 
made him drop down again, half unconscious. It 
occurred to him dimly that his arm must be broken. 
Beyond that he knew nothing, and he lay there long, 
nobody taking, for the time, any further notice of 
him. 

When he opened his eyes a second time he could 
see very well why. They were still surrounded by whole 
regiments of icebergs, and the remaining valid men of 
the crew were still rowing for dear life to get clear of 
the danger. But one other man lay worse crushed than 
himself, a mangled mass of clotted blood and torn 
rags of clothes at the bottom of the boat; while a 
second one, by his side, still alive, but barely that, 
groaned horribly at intervals in the throes of deadly 
agony. 

Arnold lay back once more, quite passive all the 
while as to whether they escaped or were engulfed. 
He was weak and faint with pain ; and so far as he 
thought of anything at all, thought merely in a dim 
way that he would like to live if only for one thing — 
to see Kathleen Hesslegrave. 

Hours passed before he knew what had really hap- 
pened. It was a curious accident. An iceberg is a 
huge floating mass of ice, only an insignificant part of 
which shows visible above water. The vastly greater 
portion is submerged and unsuspected. It is impos- 


ISLES OF WINTER 


243 


sible, of course, to guess at the shape of this sub- 
merged part, any more than one could guess at the 
shape of the submerged part of a piece of ice, as it bobs 
up and down in a glass, by observation of the bit that 
protrudes above the water. These particular ice- 
bergs, however, had such exceptionally sheer and per- 
pendicular sides that they looked like huge fragments 
of an extended ice-field broken off laterally; they 
seemed to show that the submerged portion was flush 
with the cliffs they exhibited above water. Had that 
been quite so, Arnold Willoughby’s boat could never 
have escaped complete destruction. It would have 
been stove in and crushed between the great colliding 
walls like a nut under a steam-hammer. But as it 
happened, the submerged block was slightly larger in 
that direction than the visible portion ; and the bergs 
thus crashed together for the most part under water, 
causing a commotion and eddy which very nearly suc- 
ceeded in swamping the boat, and which rendered 
rowing for a minute or two wholly impossible. At the 
same time, a projecting pinnacle that jutted out above 
from the face of the cliff came in contact with another 
part of the opposing iceberg, and, shivering into frag- 
ments a hundred yards away from them, broke up 
with such force that many of its shattered pieces were 
hurled into the boat, which they, too, threatened to 
swamp, but which fortunately resisted by the mere 
elasticity of the water about them. 

For a minute or two, all on board had been tumult 
and confusion. It was impossible for those who were 
less seriously hurt to decide offhand upon the magni- 
tude of the disaster, or to tell whether the bergs, 
recoiling with the shock, might not wheel and collide 
again, or lose balance and careen, sucking them under 


244 


AT MARKET VALUE 


as they went with the resulting eddy. As a matter of 
fact, however, the collision, which had been little 
more than a mere sideward gliding, like the kiss of a 
billiard ball, was by no means a serious one. The 
two moving mountains just touched and glanced off, 
ricocheting, as it were, and leaving the boat free in a 
moment to proceed upon her course. But as soon as 
the bo’ sun could collect his wits and his men for a 
final effort, he found that one was dead ; while two 
more, including Arnold Willoughby, lay wounded and 
senseless at the bottom of the gig — whether actually 
dead or only dying, they knew not. 

Summoning up all their remaining nerve, the un- 
injured men seized their oars once more, and rowed 
for dear life in the direction of the open. It was half 
an hour or so before they could consider themselves 
at all clear of the ice ; and even then they had no idea 
of the distance from the ship, for the Sheriff Ivory 
herself could nowhere be sighted. 

For hours they rowed on helplessly over the track- 
less waves ; it was dark before they sighted the 
missing ship in front of them. By the time they had 
reached it, Arnold Willoughby, now faint and half 
unconscious with cold and exposure, hardly realized 
as yet the full extent of his injuries. 

But when next morning he woke again in his bunk 
after a night of semi-unconsciousness, he discovered 
that his arm was really broken, and, worse still, that 
his right hand was so crushed and maimed as to be 
almost useless. 

The voyage back to Dundee was for Arnold a 
terrible one. He lay most of the time in his ham- 
mock, for he was now useless as a ‘hand’; and his 
arm, clumsily set by the mate and the bo’sun, gave 


ISLES OF WINTER 


245 


him a great deal of trouble in the small hours of the 
morning. Moreover, his outlook for the future was 
exceedingly doubtful. It was clear he would never 
again be fit to go to sea ; while the damage to his 
hand, which he feared was irrevocable, would make 
it impossible for him to return to the trade of painter. 
Whither to turn for a living when he reached home 
again, he knew not. Nay, even the desire to see 
Kathleen again, which had come over him so fiercely 
when he sat under the shadow of the impending ice- 
berg, grew much feebler and fainter now that he felt 
how impossible it would be for him in future ever to 
provide for her livelihood. More than at any previous 
time the self-deposed Earl began to realize to him- 
self what a failure he had proved on equal terms with 
his fellow-man in the struggle for existence. 

Yet even if you are a failure, it is something to 
accept your position bravely ; and Arnold Willoughby 
always accepted his own like a man with that cheery 
pessimism which is almost characteristic of his caste 
in England. 


CHAPTEE XXIII. 

A LITERAKY Dl^BUT. 

Aftee that serious accident, Arnold Willoughby lay 
ill in his bunk for several days before he felt fit for 
anything. Meanwhile, as is the wont of sailor folk on 
such hard voyages, he was left entirely to himself, or 
scantily tended at moments of leisure by his rough 
companions. At last, one day, more to still the 
throbs of pain in his shattered right hand than any- 


246 


AT MARKET VALUE 


thing else, he asked for the manuscript of his Yene- 
tian cipher. 

‘ Oh, that ?’ his messmate said, as soon as Arnold 
had clearly explained just what it was he wanted. 

‘ That bundle 0’ yaller papers ! I threw them out 
one day. A pack o’ rubbish ! I thought ’twan’t 
nothing.’ 

‘ What ? Threw it overboard ?’ Arnold exclaimed, 
taken aback and horrified at such vandalism. 

The messmate nodded. 

‘ Yes, th’ old yaller un,’ he answered. ‘ Them 
loose sheets, all torn an’ stained, if that’s what you 
mean. They wan’t up to much. I didn’t set no store 
by ’em.’ 

‘And the note-books?’ Arnold asked, with that 
little tremor of fear which comes over one when one 
fancies the work of months may have been destroyed 
or rendered useless by some casual piece of unthinking 
carelessness. 

‘ Oh, the note-books ? No, not them ; they’re safe 
enough in yonder,’ the sailor answered, nodding back- 
ward toward the locker by the bunk. ‘ I thought 
they was more like, and I didn’t chuck ’em.’ 

‘ Get them out,’ Arnold cried nervously. ‘ Let me 
see them. I want them.’ It occurred to him that in 
his present necessity he might be able to make some- 
thing out of his painstaking translation, even if the 
original manuscript itself had really perished. 

The sailor brought them out. Arnold glanced 
through them rapidly. Yes, yes ; they were all there, 
quite safe ; and as the drowning man clings to the 
proverbial straw, so Arnold Willoughby in his need 
clung to that precious manuscript. He laid it care- 
fully under his pillow when he slept, and he spent a 


A LITERARY DEBUT 


247 


large part of his waking time in polishing and im- 
proving the diction of his translation. 

When at last they returned to Dundee, Arnold found 
he had to go into hospital for a fortnight. No sooner 
was he out again, however, than he made up his mind, 
maimed hand and all, to go up to London and look 
out for Kathleen Hesslegrave. The impression printed 
upon his brain by that episode of the icebergs per- 
sisted with double force now he was fairly ashore 
again. Should he not give his one love at least the 
chance of proving herself a truer woman than he had 
ever thought her ? 

He went up to London by sea, to save expense. As 
soon as he landed, he took a room in a small lodging- 
house in the seafaring quarter. Then he set to work 
at once to hunt up the London Directory so as to dis- 
cover if he could where the Hesslegraves were living. 

He knew nothing, of course, of Mrs. Hesslegrave’s 
death ; but he saw by the Directory that she was no 
longer ensconced in the old rooms at Kensington. 
The only Hesslegrave now known to the big red 
volume, in fact, was Mr. Keginald Hesslegrave, of 
Capel Court, City, set down, with half a dozen other 
assorted names, for a flat in a small lodging-house in 
the abyss of Brompton. 

Now, Arnold remembered quite well that Kathleen’s 
brother was named Keginald ; so to the unfashionable 
lodging-house in the abyss of Brompton he directed 
his steps accordingly. 

‘Is Mrs. Hesslegrave living here?’ he asked the 
slipshod maid who opened the door to him. 

The slipshod maid mumbled ‘Yes,’ in an inarticu- 
late voice, holding the door in her hand at the same 
time, after the fashion of her kind, as if to bar his 


248 


AT MARKET VALUE 


entrance ; but Arnold slipped past her sideways by a 
strategic movement ; and the slipshod maid, accepting 
accomplished facts, showed him up, with a very bad 
grace, to the rooms on the first floor which Eeggie had 
occupied before his marriage, and which he was now 
compelled by hard decree of fate to share with Florrie. 

The slipshod maid pushed open the door, and with 
the muttered words, ‘ Genelman to see you, mum — 
Mr. WiTby,’ disappeared downstairs again with shuf- 
fling rapidity. 

But the moment Arnold found himself face to face 
with the vision of beauty in the fluffy black hair, cut 
short all over, and frizzed like a Papuan’s, he saw at 
once this couldn’t be his Mrs. Hesslegrave. ‘ I beg 
your pardon,’ he said, hesitating. ‘ I think there must 
be some mistake. I wanted to see Mrs. Hesslegrave.’ 

‘ I am Mrs. Hesslegrave,’ Florrie answered with 
dignity. Five foot two can be dignified when it makes 
its mind up to it. 

Arnold started a little. 

‘ Then I suppose you must be Mr. Eeginald Hessle- 
grave’s wife,’ he exclaimed, taken aback. ‘ I didn’t 
know he was married.’ 

‘ He’s not been married very long,’ Florrie admitted 
with her pretty coquettish smile, which recent misfor- 
tunes had not entirely clouded. ‘ Did you want to see 
Eeggie ? He’s just now come in, and he’ll be down in 
a minute.’ 

Arnold took a seat and waited; but he couldn’t 
resist the temptation to ask at once, meanwhile, the 
latest tidings of Kathleen. Florrie had by this time 
acquired from her husband a considerable dislike of 
that hard-hearted woman, who wouldn’t marry a rich 
man — such an easy thing to do — on purpose because 


A LITERARY DJ&BUT 


249 


she didn’t want to be of use to dear Eeggie. So her 
answers were of a sort which made Arnold suspect she 
didn’t particularly care for her newly- acquired sister- 
in-law. By the time Eeggie came down, indeed, she 
had made her position tolerably plain to Arnold, and 
had also managed, with innate feminine astuteness, to 
arrive at the conclusion that this was the Other Man 
whom Kathleen had known a couple of years ago at 
Venice. Nay, so convinced was she of this fact, that 
she made some little excuse to leave Arnold alone in 
the room for a minute while she ran upstairs to com- 
municate her suspicions on the point to Eeggie. This 
vile interloper, the other man, must be promptly 
crushed in the interests of the family. When Eeggie 
himself at last descended, he fully shared Florrie’s 
view; the very eagerness with which the stranger 
asked after Kitty’s health showed Eeggie at once he 
had very good reasons for wishing to see her. 

Now, Eeggie, though a silly young man, was by no 
means a fool where his own interests were concerned ; 
on the contrary, he was well endowed with that intui- 
tive cunning which enables a man to find out at once 
whatever is most to his personal advantage. So, 
having arrived instinctively at the conclusion that this 
was the other fellow of whom his sister had spoken, 
he proceeded, as he phrased it himself, ‘to put a 
spoke in the other fellow’s wheel ’ on the subject of 
Kathleen. 

‘ Oh no, my sister^s not in town,’ he said with a 
slight smile, and a quick side-glance at Florrie, as a 
warning that she was not on any account to contradict 
this flagrant departure from historical accuracy ; 

‘ she’s gone down into the country — to Cromer, in 
fact,’ Eeggie continued, growing bolder in the details 


250 


AT MARKET VALUE 


of his romance as he eyed Arnold Willoughby. * She’s 
going to stay there with some friends of ours, to meet 
another old Venetian acquaintance whom I dare say 
you knew — a charming young American, Mr. Kufus 
Mortimer.’ 

Eeggie delivered this home-thrust direct, watching 
his visitor’s face as he did so to see whether it roused 
any appreciable emotion ; and he was not disappointed 
with the result of his clever move. It was ‘ Check !’ 
most decidedly. 

Arnold Willoughby gave a sudden start. 

‘ Eufus Mortimer !’ he exclaimed. ‘ She’s going 
down to Cromer to stop with some friends in the same 
house with Eufus Mortimer ?’ 

‘ Yes,’ Eeggie answered carelessly. Then he smiled 
to himself a curious and very significant smile. ‘ The 
fact is,’ he went on boldly, determined to make that 
spoke in the other fellow’s wheel a good big round one 
while he was about it, ‘ they’re very thick together 
just now, our Kitty and the American. Between 
ourselves, as you’re a friend of the family’s, and knew 
the dear old mater, I don’t mind telling you — I rather 
expect to reckon Eufus Mortimer as my brother-in-law 
elect before many weeks are over.’ And this last 
remark, so far as Mr. Eeginald’s own expectations 
were concerned, could not be condemned as wholly un- 
truthful. 

‘ Are they engaged, then ?’ Arnold asked, quivering. 
His worst fears were confirmed. Failing the Earl in 
disguise, Kathleen had flung herself into the arms of 
the American millionaire, as next best among her 
chances. 

‘ Well, not exactly engaged, don’t you know,’ Eeggie 
responded airily. ‘ Not quite what you can call 


A LITERARY DEBUT 


251 

, perhaps. But it’s an understood thing all 

I the same in the family.’ 

Arnold Willoughby’s heart sank like lead. He 
! didn’t know why, but somehow, ever since that after- 
‘ noon in the ice-channel, he had cherished, day and 
night, a sort of irrational, instinctive belief that, after 
all, he was mistaken, and that Kathleen loved him. 

I Yet now he saw once more he was in error on that 
point; she was really nothing more than the self- 
1 , seeking, money-loving, position-hunting girl her own 
mother had so frankly represented her to be that 
fateful day in the rooms by the Piazza. 

Poor Kathleen ! She was indeed unfortunate in 
her relations. At Venice it was Mrs. Hesslegrave, in 
London it was Eeggie, who so cruelly misrepresented 
her to her much misled lover. 

Arnold didn’t stop long. Nor did he ask for Kath- 
leen’s address. After all, if she was really going to 
marry Kufus Mortimer, it would be a pity for him 
to intrude at such a moment on her happiness. 
Mortimer was rich, and would make her comfortable. 
Money was what she wanted, and if Kathleen wanted 
it 

Even as he thought that hard thought, he broke off 
in his own mind suddenly. No, no ; it wasn’t money 
she wanted, his beautiful, innocent Kathleen ; of that 
he felt certain. And yet, if she really meant to marry 
Eufus Mortimer, it was at least his duty not to step in 
now between the" prospective bride and her rich new 
lover, who could do so much more for her than ever 
he himself could do. 

As soon as he was gone. Master Eeggie turned 
philosophically to Florrie, and observed with a 
smile : 


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‘I settled his hash, I flatter myself. He won’t 
bother her any more. I’ve sent him about his 
business. And a precious good thing for herself too, 
if it comes to that : for just fancy a girl like Kitty 
being tied for life to a fellow in sailor clothes, and 
badly cut at that, with no right hand to brag about !’ 

But as for Arnold, he took his way sadly down the 
crowded streets,[with the last remnants of a heart well- 
nigh crushed out of him. 

However, as long as a man lives, he has to think 
about his living. Bread and cheese we must have, 
though our hearts be breaking. Next day, accord- 
ingly, Arnold called at a well-known firm of publishers 
in the City, Stanley and Lockhart by name, to ask 
whether any decision had yet been arrived at about 
the manuscript translation from an Italian original 
he had sent them by post from Dundee a fortnight 
earlier. 

The senior partner, an acute-looking man, with very 
little hair on his head to boast of, gazed hard at his 
visitor. 

‘Well, yes, Mr. Willoughby,’ he said, with a dry 
business smile. ‘ I’ve looked at your manuscript, and 
our reader has reported on it ; and I’m free to tell you 
we think very well of it. It’s one of the most brilliant 
bits of historical fiction we’ve had submitted to us for 
a long time.’ 

‘ Oh, I beg your pardon,’ Arnold interposed, colour- 
ing slightly. ‘ I think you’re labouring under a 
misapprehension. Have you read the Introduction? 

I there explain that it’s translated from an Italian 
manuscript.’ 

‘ Yes, yes,’ Mr. Stanley broke in, smiling still more 
broadly. ‘ I know all that, of course. It’s admirable. 


A LITERARY DEBUT 


253 


admirable. Nothing could be better done. Falls in 
exactly with the current taste for high-spiced and 
strongly-flavoured historical romance, with a good 
dash of bloodshed ; and the Introduction itself is 
one of the best parts — so circumstantial and solemn, 
and with such an innocent air of truth and sin- 
cerity.’ 

‘But it is true, you know,’ Arnold cried, annoyed at 
being doubted, which was the one thing a man of his 
sensitive honour could never put up with. ‘ I found 
the manuscript at Venice, in a tiny little shop, exactly 
under the circumstances I there describe ; and I trans- 
lated it into English during my spare time on board 
ships in two Northern voyages.’ 

‘In-deed !’ the publisher replied, with a quiet, self- 
restrained smile. He was accustomed to dealing with 
these imaginative authors, some of whom, it is 
whispered, do not entirely confine their faculty of 
fiction to mere literary products. ‘ And where is the 
manuscript now? It would be an interesting docu- 
ment.’ 

‘ Unfortunately, it’s lost,’ Arnold Willoughby 
answered, growing hot. ‘ One of my fellow-sailors 
took it out of my locker while I was confined to my 
bunk with this injured hand of mine, and destroyed it 
or threw it overboard. At any rate, it’s not forth- 
coming. And I’m sorry for that, as it’s of historical 
importance, and, of course, it would be useful in 
proving the authenticity and value of the narra- 
tive.’ 

‘ Ve7y useful indeed,’ Mr. Stanley replied, with a 
meaning smile, which again annoyed Arnold. ‘ How- 
ever, the question now is not as to the authenticity or 
authorship of the narrative at all, but as to its money’s 


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worth for purposes of publication. We will agree that 
it is essentially a work of fiction. Whether it was 
written by you, or by Master John Collingham, of 
Holt, in Norfolk, it’s still a work of fiction. He may 
have designed it to amuse or to deceive the Council of 
Ten; but, any way, I tell you, he was a first-rate 
novelist. I deal in these things, and I flatter myself 
I know a work of art when I see it. Well, now, then, 
let’s get to business, Mr. Willoughby. What I should 
propose to do, is to buy the copyright outright from 
you. And as this is a doubtful venture by a new 
author, suppose we make you an offer of fifty pounds 
for the manuscript.’ 

Arnold’s heart gave a wild leap. Fifty pounds ! 
Why, as things now went, ’twas a perfect Pactolus ! 
On fifty pounds he could subsist for a twelvemonth. 
Since he ceased to be Earl of Axminster, he had never 
for a moment had so large a sum at one time in his 
possession. 

He didn’t know he was making a bad bargain ; and, 
indeed, so doubtful did his poor little venture seem to 
himself, that even if someone else of greater experience 
had stood by his side to warn him against selling a 
piece of property of unknown value outright like that 
for the first sum offered, he would probably have 
answered, and perhaps answered rightly : 

‘ I’d rather take fifty pounds down, and be certain 
of my money, than speculate on what may, perhaps, 
be a bad investment.’ 

Fifty pounds down is a big sum to a beginner ; and 
the beginner would most often be justified in jumping 
at it. 

At any rate, Arnold jumped at it. His face flushed 
with pleasure. 


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255 


* I should be delighted,’ he said, ‘ to accept such an 
offer. And the book would come out ?’ 

* At the beginning of the new season. Very well, 
then, that’s settled.’ 

Mr. Stanley took up a blank form of agreement 
lying careless by his side, and filling it in rapidly with 
name, date, and title, as well as valuable considera- 
tion, handed it across forthwith for inspection to 
Arnold. 

‘ Is that right ?’ he asked, with a wave of his pen. 

‘Quite right,’ Arnold answered, ‘except that, of 
course, you mustn’t say “written by me.” It ought 
to be “ deciphered and translated by me.” I can’t 
sell you as mine what I’ve never written.’ 

The publisher gave a short sniff of suppressed im- 
patience, but drew his pen half angrily through the 
peccant words. 

‘ There. Will that satisfy you ?’ he asked. 

And Arnold, glancing at it, took up the proffered 
pen and signed his name at the bottom. 

Mr. Stanley drew a cheque and handed it over to 
him. 

Arnold scanned it and handed it back. 

‘ I’m afraid this won’t do,’ he said. ‘ It’s crossed, I 
see, and I happen to have no banking account. Could 
you kindly give me one drawn simply to bearer ?’ 

‘ No banking account ?’ the publisher cried. 

This was certainly the very queerest sort of literary 
man he had ever yet come across. 

‘No,’ Arnold answered stoutly. ‘ You must remember 
I’m nothing but a common sailor.’ 

The man of business drew a second cheque, tearing 
up the first as soon as he had done so. 

‘ But where did you learn Italian ?’ he asked ; ‘ and 


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how did you pick up all this intimate knowledge of 
Elizabethan England, and Spain, and Italy ?’ 

‘ You forget that was all in the manuscript,’ Arnold 
answered simply. 

The publisher waved his hand again. ’Twas an 
impatient wave. There was really no dealing with a 
fellow like this, who told a lie and stuck to it. 

‘ Ah, true,’ he mused reflectively, with the same 
curious smile. ‘ Well, Mr. Willoughby, I should say 
you have a great future in fiction before you.’ 

Arnold hardly knew whether to accept that remark 
as a compliment or otherwise. 

But as he descended the publisher’s stairs that 
morning, he had got rid of the copyright and all 
property and interest in a work entitled ‘An Eliza- 
bethan Seadog,’ to Messrs. Stanley and Lockhart, 
their heirs and executors, in consideration of the sum 
of fifty pounds sterling. 

And Mr. Stanley was saying to Mr. Lockhart in the 
privacy of the counting-house : 

‘ I’ll tell you what it is, Lockhart, I believe we’ve 
got hold of a second Eider Haggard. I never read 
anything more interesting in my life than this sailor- 
fellow’s narrative. It has an air of history about it 
that’s positively astonishing. Heaven knows where 
he learned to write such English as that! but he 
writes it admirably.’ 


CHAPTEK XXIV. 

AN ANGEL FROM THE WEST. 

Eufus Mortimer lay stretched at full length on the 
heather-clad dome of a Surrey hill- top. He was turn- 


AN ANGEL FROM THE WEST 257 

ing lazily over the pages of a weekly paper. He 
passed from the politics to the social ‘ middles,’ and 
from the middles again to the reviews and the literary 
column. It was dull, deadly dull, the self-laudatory 
commmiqiids of second-rate amateurs. His eye ran 
carelessly through the items of news and the hints of 
forthcoming works : ‘We understand that the article 
on “Eichelieu and his Contemporaries” in the 
current number of the South British Quarterly, which 
is attracting so much attention in well-informed circles 
at the present moment, is from the facile yet learned 
pen of Mr. J. Anstruther Maclaren, the well-known 
authority on the age of the Bourbons.’ — ‘ Mrs. 
Eotherham’s new novel, “My Heart and His,” will 
shortly be published by Messrs. Eigby, Short, and 
Co. It will deal with the vicissitudes of an Italian 
gipsy girl, who studies medicine at Girton, and after- 
wards becomes convinced of the truths of Theosophy, 
the principles of which are eloquently defended at 
some length by the accomplished authoress.’ — ‘ Mr. 
Edmund Wilkes, Q.C., denies the report that he is the 
author of that clever Society sketch, “ An Archbishop’s 
Daughter-in-law,” which has caused so much amuse- 
ment, and so many searchings of heart in high eccle- 
siastical and legal quarters during the present season. 
We are also assured there is no good ground for 
attributing the work to the wife of the veteran Dean 
of Northborough, whose finished literary handicraft 
does not in any way resemble the crude and unformed 
style of that now famous story. The work bears, on 
the contrary, internal traces of being due to the 
sprightly wit of a very young lady, acquainted with 
the clerical society of a northern cathedral town, but 
little at home in the great world of London.’ — Eufus 

17 


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Mortimer almost laid down the paper in disgust. 
Better, surely, the fellowship of the eternal hills, the 
myriad buzz of the bees, the purple heather, than the 
solicitous echoes of this provincial gossip. 

But just as he was going to fling the journal down 
in his distaste, his eye chanced to light upon a single 
belated paragraph, wedged in between two others near 
the end of the column : ‘ Messrs. Stanley and Lock- 
hart will publish almost immediately a new and 
stirring romance of the Armada period, entitled, 
‘‘ An Elizabethan Sea-dog,” purporting to be written 
by one John Collingham, a Norfolk sailor, wdio was 
imprisoned in Spain by the Inquisition for refusing 
to abjure “ the damnable doctrine of her Grace’s 
supremacy.” It is announced as “translated and 
edited by Arnold Willoughby,” and is described in 
their circular as being one of the most thrilling works 
of adventure published since the beginning of the 
present revived taste for the literature of romantic 
exploits.’ 

In a moment Kufus Mortimer had jumped up 
from his seat on the overblown heather. In accord- 
ance with his promise to Kathleen, he had been hunt- 
ing for weeks to find Arnold Willoughby ; and now, 
by pure chance, he had lighted unawares on a singular 
clue to his rival’s whereabouts. 

Eufus Mortimer was a man of his word. Moreover, 
like all the higher natures, he was raised far above 
the petty meanness of jealousy. If he loved Kathleen, 
he could not help desiring to do whatever would please 
her, even though it were that hard task — to find for 
her sake the lover who was to supplant him. As soon 
as he read those words, he had but one thought in his 
mind — he must go up to town at once and see whether 


AN ANGEL FROM THE WEST 259 

Stanley and Lockhart could supply him with the 
address of their new author. 

In five minutes more he was back at his lodgings, 
whither he had come down, partly for rest and 
change after his fresh disappointment, partly to paint 
a little purple gem of English moorland landscape for 
an American Exhibition. He turned to his Bradshaw 
eagerly. An up-train would be due in twenty minutes. 
It was sharp work to catch it, for his rooms on the 
hill- top lay more than a mile from the station ; but off 
he set at a run, so eager was he to find out the truth 
about Arnold Willoughby. At the station he had just 
time to despatch a hasty telegram up to town to 
Kathleen — ‘Am on the track of the missing man. 
Will wire again to-night. Have good hopes of find- 
ing him. — Kufus Mortimer ’ — when the train steamed 
in, and he jumped impetuously into a first-class 
carriage. 

At Waterloo he hailed a hansom, and drove straight 
to Stanley and Lockhart’s. He sent up his card, and 
asked if he might see one of the partners. The 
American millionaire’s name was well enough known 
in London to secure him at once a favourable reception. 
Mr. Stanley received him with the respect justly due 
to so many hard dollars. He came provided with the 
universal passport. Kufus Mortimer went straight to 
the business in hand. Could Mr. Stanley inform him 
of the present address of Mr. Arnold Willoughby, the 
editor of this new book, ‘ An Elizabethan Sea-dog ?’ 

Mr. Stanley hesitated. 

‘ Are you a friend of Mr. Willoughby’s ?’ he asked, 
looking out over his spectacles. ‘ For you know he 
poses as a sort of dark horse. He’s reticent about 
himself, and we don’t even know whether Arnold 


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Willoughby’s his real name or a pseudonym. He 
dresses like and pretends to be a common sailor.’ 

‘ Oh yes,’ Mortimer answered, smiling. ‘ Wil- 
loughby’s his own name, right enough; and he is 
what he seems to be, an able-bodied mariner. But 
he’s a very remarkable man in his way, for all that — 
a painter, a reader, extremely well informed, and in 
every sense a gentleman. There are no flies on 
Willoughby.’ 

‘ No what ?’ Mr. Stanley asked, opening his eyes. 

‘No flies,’ Eufus answered, with a compassionate 
smile for English dulness. ‘ I mean, he’s fresh, and 
clever, and original.’ 

‘ So we gathered,’ the head of the firm replied. 

‘ Well, to anybody but you, Mr. Mortimer, we would 
refuse the address ; but I suppose we may take it for 
granted in your case you want it for none but 
purposes which Mr. Willoughby himself would ap- 
prove of.’ 

And he smiled, all benignity. 

‘ I hope so,’ Eufus answered good-humouredly. ‘ I 
want it, first, for myself ; and, secondly, for a person 
in whom I may venture to say Mr. Willoughby is 
deeply interested.’ 

The publisher raised his eyebrows. That was the 
very worst plea Eufus Mortimer could have put in ; 
for when a man’s clearly skulking from the eyes of 
the world, the person (presumably a lady) who is 
most deeply interested in him is, oftener than not, the 
one creature on earth he’s most anxious to hide from. 
So the wise man hesitated. 

‘ Well, I don’t know whether I ought to tell you,’ 
he said at last, shading his eyes with his hand, ‘ but 
to be quite, quite frank with you, we don’t exactly 


AN ANGEL FROM THE WEST 261 

know whether we’ve got his real address or not our- 
selves. He has his proofs posted to him at a small 
seafaring coffee-house, somewhere right away down in 
the far East End ; and that’s hardly the sort of place 
where a man of letters, such as he evidently is, would 
be likely to be lodging.’ 

Eufus Mortimer smiled once more. 

‘I expect it’s where he lodges,’ he answered. ‘ At 
Venice he used to board in the house of a sort of 
inferior marine-stores dealer. He’s a live man, is 
Willoughby; he doesn’t trouble himself much about 
the upholsteries and the fripperies.’ 

The publisher, still half unconvinced, wrote down 
the address on a slip of paper ; and Mortimer, just 
thanking him for it, rushed off to another cab, and 
hurried away at full speed to the East End coffee- 
house. 

Fortunately, Arnold Willoughby was in. He had 
little to go out for. Mortimer went up to his room, a 
plain, small bedroom on the second floor, very simply 
furnished, but clean and comfortable. He was taken 
aback at the first look of the man. 

Arnold seemed thinner than at Venice, very worn 
and ill-looking. But he started up at the sound of 
Mortimer’s cheery voice, which he recognised at once 
with its scarcely perceptible tinge of pleasant and 
cultivated Pennsylvanian accent. Then he held out 
his left hand. 

Mortimer saw for himself that the right hung half 
idle by his side, as if paralyzed. 

‘ Why, what does this mean ?’ he asked quickly. 

Arnold smiled in reply, and grasped his friend’s 
hand warmly ; though, to say the truth, he felt not 
quite at his ease with the man who was to marry 


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Kathleen Hesslegrave. He would have been glad in 
some ways to be spared this visit : though, now it was 
thrust upon him, he was really thankful in others 
that he was to know the truth, and to put himself 
once more en rapport with Kathleen. 

‘ Oh, nothing much,’ he answered, forcing a diffi- 
cult smile. ‘ I got crushed in an iceberg accident. 
Worse calamities happen at sea. Though it’s 
maimed my painting hand, which is always a mis- 
fortune.’ 

‘ Is it serious ?’ Mortimer asked with interest. 

‘ Well, the doctors tell me it’ll never be good for 
anything much again,’ Arnold answered bravely. ‘ I 
can learn to write with my left, of course ; but I must 
give up painting, I’m afraid, altogether.’ 

They sat and talked for some time about the acci- 
dent and how it had happened ; but neither of them 
said a word for many minutes together of the subject 
that was nearest both their hearts that moment. 
Arnold was too shy and reserved ; while as for Eufus 
Mortimer, he felt, under the circumstances, he had no 
right to betray Kathleen Hesslegrave’s confidence. 

At last, however, Arnold mustered up courage to 
make the doubtful plunge. 

‘ I believe I have to congratulate you,’ he said, with 
a rather feeble smile, looking hard at Mortimer. 

The American winced. 

‘ To congratulate me ?’ he answered. ‘ I don’t quite 
understand. On what, and why, please ?’ 

Arnold gazed at him, and hesitated. Ought he to 
go on or hold his peace ? It would be more discreet, 
perhaps even more honourable, to say nothing further, 
but, having once begun, he must get to the bottom 
of it. 


AN ANGEL FROM THE WEST 


263 


‘Well, about Miss Hesslegrave,’ he replied. ‘I 
heard — that is to say — I understood you were going 
to be married to her. And I’m sure I don’t know 
any man in the world more altogether worthy of 
her.’ 

Kufus Mortimer stared at him. 

‘ Married to her !’ he exclaimed. ‘ Why, who on 
earth told you that? My dear fellow, you’re mis- 
taken. I’m sorry to say there isn’t one word of truth 
in it.’ 

‘But her own brother told me so,’ Arnold persisted, 
unable to disentangle this ravelled skein. 

‘ Her own brother !’ Mortimer exclaimed. ‘ What ! 
that wretched little monkey ? He told you this lie ? 
Why, whenever did you see him ?’ 

‘About six or eight weeks ago,’ Arnold answered, 
growing hot ; ‘ up here in London. And he cer- 
tainly gave me to understand it was a foregone con- 
clusion.’ 

‘ What ! he saw you six or eight weeks ago, and he 
never told Miss Hesslegrave ?’ Mortimer cried, justly 
angry, and forgetting, in his surprise, all about Kath- 
leen’s secret. ‘ I see what he did that for. The 
selfish little wretch ! How mean ! How disgraceful 
of him !’ 

‘ Why should he tell Miss Hesslegrave ?’ Arnold 
answered, looking hard at him. ‘ Surely, under the 
circumstances, it would be best she should see and 
hear nothing more of me.’ 

Kufus Mortimer hesitated. He loved Kathleen too 
well not to desire to serve her ; and he felt sure Arnold 
was labouring under some profound delusion. But he 
made up his mind that, under the circumstances, it 
was best to be frank. 


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‘ You’re mistaken,’ he replied. ‘ Miss Hesslegrave 
is anxious to see you again, in order to clear up a 
most serious misapprehension. To tell you the plain 
truth, Willoughby, that’s why I’m here to-day. I 
don’t know what the misapprehension itself may be,’ 
he added hastily, for he saw from a faint shade which 
flitted on Arnold’s face that that quick and sensitive 
nature had again jumped at a conclusion adverse to 
Kathleen. ‘ She hasn’t betrayed your confidence, 
whatever it may be ; and if I’m betraying hers now, it’s 
only because I see there’s no other way out of it.’ He 
paused a moment and wiped his brow ; then the real 
man came out in one of those rare bursts of un- 
adulterated nature which men seldom permit them- 
selves. ‘ You don’t know what it costs me,’ he said 
earnestly. ‘ You don’t know what it costs me.’ 

He spoke with such transparent sincerity and depth 
of feeling that Arnold couldn’t help sympathizing 
with him. And yet, even so, after all his bitter 
experience, he couldn’t help letting the thought flit 
through his mind all the same — was Kathleen still 
trying to catch the Earl, but keeping a second string 
to her bow, all the while, in the rich American ? 

He laid his hand gently on Kufus Mortimer’s 
shoulder. 

‘My dear fellow,’ he said with real feeling, ‘ I can 
see how much it means to you. I’m sorry indeed if 
I stand between you and her. I never wished to do so. 
There has indeed been an error, a very serious error ; 
but it has been on her part, not on mine. She would 
have married me once, I know, but under a misappre- 
hension. If she knew the whole truth now, she 
wouldn’t want to see me again. And even if she did,’ 
he added, holding up his maimed hand pathetically — 


AN ANGEL FROM THE WEST 


265 


‘ even if it was the painter she wanted, and not— ah, 
no ! I forgot — but even if it was the painter, how 
could she take him now, and how could he burden 
her with himself, in this mangled condition ? It was 
always a wild dream; by now it’s an impossible 
one.’ 

‘ That’s for her to judge, Willoughby,’ Eufus 
Mortimer answered, with earnestness. ‘ Ah, man, 
how can you talk so ? To think you might make her 
yours with a turn of your hand, and won’t — while I ! 
— oh, I’d give every penny I possess if only I dare hope 
for her. And here I am, pleading with you on her 
behalf against myself : and not even knowing whether 
I’m not derogating from her dignity and honour by 
condescending on her behalf to say so much as I do to 
you.’ 

He leaned back in his easy-chair and held his hand 
to his forehead. For a moment neither spoke. Then 
Arnold began slowly : 

‘ I love her very much, Mortimer,’ he said. ‘ Once, 
I loved her distractedly. I don’t think I could speak 
about her to any other man ; certainly not to any 
Englishman. But you Americans are somehow quite 
different from us in fibre. I can say things to you I 
couldn’t possibly say to any fellow-countryman. Now, 
this is what I feel : she could be happy with you. I 
can do nothing for her now. I must just live out my 
own life the best way I can with what limbs remain to 
me. It would be useless my seeing her. It would 
only mean a painful explanation ; and, when it was 
over, we must go our own ways — and in the end she 
would marry you.’ 

‘ I think you owe her that explanation, though,’ 
Mortimer answered slowly. ‘ Mind, I’m pleading her 


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cause with you against myself — because I promised 
her to do all I could to find you ; and I interpret that 
promise according to the spirit and not according to 
the letter. But you owe it to her to see her. You 
think the misunderstanding was on her side alone; 
she thinks it was on yours. Very well, then; that 
shows there is still something to be cleared up. You 
must see her and clear it. For even if she didn’t 
marry you, she wouldn’t marry me. So it’s no use 
urging that. As to your hand — no, Willoughby, you 
must let me say it — if you can’t support her yourself, 
what are a few thousands to me ? You needn’t accept 
them; I could make them over to her, before her 
marriage. I know that’s not the way things are 
usually done ; but you and I and she are not usual 
people. Why shouldn’t we cast overboard conventions 
for once, and act like three rational human beings ?’ 

Arnold Willoughby grasped his hand. He couldn’t 
speak for a minute. Something rose in his throat and 
choked him. Here at least was one man whom he 
could trust— one man to whom earl or sailor made no 
difference. He was almost tempted in the heat of the 
moment to confess and explain everything. 

‘Mortimer,’ he said at last, holding his friend’s hand 
in his, ‘ you have always been kindness itself to me. 
I will answer you one thing : if I could accept that 
offer from any man, I could accept it from you. But 
I couldn’t, I couldn’t. For the sake of my own inde- 
pendence, I once gave up everything ; how could I go 
back upon it now in order to ’ 

But before he could finish his sentence, Eufus 
Mortimer stared at him in one of those strange flashes 
of intuition which come over women often, and men 
sometimes, at critical moments of profound emotion. 


AN ANGEL FROM THE WEST 


267 


‘Then you are Lord Axminster !’ he cried. 

‘ Did she tell you so ?’ Arnold burst out, drawing 
his hand away suddenly. 

‘ No, never. Not a word, not a breath, not a hint 
of it,’ Mortimer answered firmly. ‘She kept your 
secret well — as I will keep it. I see it all now. It 
comes home to me in a moment. You thought it was 
the Earl she had fallen in love with, not the sailor 
and painter. You thought she would only care for 
you if you assumed your title. My dear Willoughby, 
you’re mistaken, if ever a man was.’ He drew a 
letter-case from his pocket. ‘Bead that,’ he said 
earnestly. ‘ The circumstances justify me in breaking 
her confidence so far. I do it for her own sake. 
Heaven knows it costs me dear enough to do it.’ 

Arnold Willoughby, deeply stirred, read it through 
in profound silence. It was the letter Kathleen had 
written in answer to Kufus Mortimer’s last proposal. 
He read it through, every line, with the intensest 
emotion. It was a good woman’s letter if ever he had 
seen one. It stung him like remorse. 

‘ If I had never met Mm, I might perhaps have 
loved you dearly. But I have loved one man too well 
in my time ever to love a second ; and whether I find 
him again or not, my mind is quite made up : I 
cannot give myself to any other. I speak to you 
frankly, because from the very first you have known 
my secret, and because I can trust and respect and 
like you. But if ever I meet him again, I shall be his, 
and his only ; and his only I must be if I never again 
meet him.’ 

Arnold Willoughby handed the letter back to 
Mortimer with tears in his eyes. He felt he had 
wronged her. Whether she knew he was an Earl 


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from the beginning or not, he believed now she really 
loved him for his own sake alone, and could never 
love any other man. She was not mercenary ; if she 
were, she would surely have accepted so brilliant an 
offer as Eufus Mortimer’s. She was not fickle ; if she 
were, she would never have written such a letter as 
that about a man who had apparently disappeared 
from her horizon. Arnold’s heart was touched home. 

‘ I must go to her,’ he said instantly. * I must 
see her, and set this right. Where is she now, 
Mortimer ?’ 

‘ I’ll go with you,’ Mortimer answered quickly. — 
‘No; don’t be afraid,’ he added with a bitter smile. 
‘ As far as the door, I mean. Don’t suppose I want 
to hamper you in such an interview.’ 

For it occurred to him that if they went together to 
the door in a cab, he might be allowed to pay for it, 
and that otherwise Arnold wouldn’t be able to afford 
one. But Kathleen’s heart must not be kept on that 
stretch for ten minutes longer than was absolutely 
necessary. 


CHAPTEE XXV. 

THE MEETING. 

Arnold Willoughby arrived at Kathleen Hessle- 
grave’s door in a tremor of delight, excitement, and 
ecstasy. During all those long months that he had 
been parted from her, he had loved her with his 
whole soul — loved the memory of the ghd he had once 
believed her, even though that girl, as he fancied, 
never really existed. And now that her letter to 


THE MEETING 


269 


Bufus Mortimer had once more reinstated her image 
in his mind as he first imagined her, his love came 
back to him with a rush, even more vividly than ever. 

For had he not now, in her own very handwriting, 
the assurance that she loved him — the assurance that 
she was his, be he present or absent? He could 
approach her at last without any doubts on that sub- 
ject. He could be sure of her answering love, her 
real affection for himself, whatever might be the 
explanation of those strange expressions Mrs. Hessle- 
grave had attributed to her that afternoon in Venice. 

He mounted the stairs in a fever of joy and sup- 
pressed expectation. Kathleen sat in her little draw- 
ing-room, waiting anxiously for the promised second 
telegram from Bufus Mortimer. A knock at the outer 
portal of the flat aroused her, all tremulous. Could 
that be the telegraph-boy ? She held her room door 
half ajar, and listened for the voice. 

When it came, it sent a thrill of surprise, delight, 
and terror down her spine like a cold wave. ‘ Is Miss 
Hesslegrave in ?’ it said ; but the tone — the tone was 
surely Arnold Willoughby’s ! 

‘Miss Hesslegrave is engaged this afternoon, sir, 
and can’t see anybody,’ the maid answered demurely. 
For Kathleen felt too agitated, with hope and sus- 
pense, for receiving visitors. 

‘ I think she’ll see me,' Arnold replied with a confi- 
dent smile ; and while the girl still hesitated, Kathleen’s 
own voice broke out from within in very clear tones : 

‘ Let the gentleman come in, Mary.’ 

At sound of her voice, a strange thrill passed 
through Arnold Willoughby in turn ; he rushed along 
the passage and burst into the sitting-room. There 
stood Kathleen, pale and panting, with one hand on a 


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chair, and one on her throbbing heart — much thinner 
and whiter than he had known her of old — much 
thinner and whiter, but not one w^hit less beautiful. 
In that first tumult of wild delight at his love restored, 
Arnold Willoughby darted forward, and for the first 
time in his life would have clasped her in his arms and 
kissed her as she stood there. 

But Kathleen, looking hard at him, and recognising 
in a second how ill and wasted he was, with his 
maimed arm hanging loose by his side in its helpless- 
ness, yet waved him back from her at once with an 
imperious gesture. 

‘ No, no,’ she said proudly, conquering her love with 
an effort. ■ Not now, not now, Arnold ! Once I 
would have let you, if you wished ; and still even to- 
day — oh, my heart, my poor heart — I could willingly 
let you — if it were not for that barrier. But the 
barrier is there even now ; and until you understand 
everything — until you know I was never what you 
have thought me so long — I can’t possibly allow you. 
I don’t want you to trust me ; I don’t want you to be- 
lieve me ; I want you to know — to know and under- 
stand ; I want you to see for yourself how you have 
wronged me.’ 

Arnold’s face was all penitence. As she spoke, so 
fearlessly and so proudly, yet with such an under- 
current of tenderness, he wondered to himself how he 
could ever have doubted her. 

‘Oh, Kathleen,’ he cried, standing back a pace, 
and stretching out his hands, and calling her for the 
first time to her face by the name she had always 
borne in his thoughts and his day-dreams, ‘ don’t say 
that to me, please. Don’t crush me so utterly. I 
know how wrong I have been ; I know how much I 


THE MEETING 


271 


have misjudged you. But don’t visit it too heavily 
upon me. I have suffered for it myself ; see, see how 
I have suffered for it ! — and you don’t know yet how 
difficult it was for me to resist the conclusion. After 
what I was told, my darling, my heart’s love, I could 
hardly think otherwise.’ 

' I know that,’ Kathleen answered, standing opposite 
him and trembling, with a fierce desire to throw her- 
self at once into her lover’s arms, only just restrained 
by a due sense of her womanly dignity. ‘ If I didn’t 
know it, Mr. Willoughby — or Arnold, if you will — I 
wouldn’t allow^ you to come here ; I wouldn’t allow you 
to speak to me. I would guard my pride better. It’s 
because I know it that I’m going to explain all how 
to you. It’s because I know it that I’m going to lay 
my heart bare, like an open book in front of you. 
Before I hear anything else — before I even ask what 
that means ’ — and she glanced at his useless hand with 
unspoken distress — ‘ we must clear up this mystery. 
Till the misunderstanding’s cleared, we can’t talk 
about anything else as we ought to one another. And 
in order to clear it up, I shall tell you — just every- 
thing. I shall open my whole soul. I shall tear my 
heart out for you. There’s no room for reserve 
between us two to-day. We must understand one 
another, once for all, oh Arnold, my. Arnold, now 
I’ve found you, I’ve found you !’ 

Arnold gazed at her, and melted with shame and 
remorse. Her passion overcame him. How could he 
ever for one moment have doubted that pure, that 
queenly soul ? But then — Mrs. Hesslegrave’s words ! 
that dark saying about the earldom! those strange 
mysterious hints of a deliberate conspiracy ! 

‘ You thought I knew from the first who you were ?’ 


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Kathleen began, drawing breath and facing him 
boldly. 

* I thought you believed from the first I was Lord 
Axminster,’ Arnold answered, quite frankly, but still 
refusing to commit himself ; ‘ and I thought it was 
through that belief alone that you first permitted 
a common sailor to win his way as far as he did, if 
he did, into your affections. But, Kathleen, I won’t 
think so now ; if you tell me you didn’t. I’ll believe 
you at once ; and if you tell me you did, but that you 
loved me for myself, though you took me for ten thou- 
sand times over an Earl, oh, Kathleen, I will believe 
you; I will believe you and love you, with all my 
heart and soul, if only you’ll allow me.’ 

It was a great deal for Arnold Willoughby, with his 
past behind him, to say; but it wasn’t enough for 
Kathleen. She was still unsatisfied. She stood 
before him, trembling and quivering all over with 
love, yet just waving him back with one imperious 
hand when he strove to draw nearer to her. 

* No, no,’ she answered, holding him off with her 
queenly gesture. ‘ That’s not what I want. I want 
plainly to clear myself. I want you to know, to be 
sure and certain, beyond the shadow of a doubt, I 
was not what you took me for. I want you to under- 
stand the whole real truth. I want you to see for 
yourself what I thought of you first ; I want you to 
see when I began to love you — for I did love you, 
Arnold, and I do love you still — and how and when I 
first discovered your real name and personality.’ She 
moved across the room from where she stood to a 
desk in the corner. ‘Bead this,’ she said simply, 
taking out a diary and handing it to him. ‘Begin 
there, on the day I first met you in London. Then 


THE MEETING 


273 


turn on to these pages where I put this mark, and 
read straight through till you come to the end — when 
you went away from Venice. The end of everything 
for me — till you came again this evening.’ 

It was no time for protestations. Arnold saw she 
was in earnest. He took the book and read. Mean- 
while, Kathleen sank into an easy-chair opposite, and 
watched his face eagerly as he turned over the pages. 

He read on and on in a fever of delight. He read 
how she had come upon him in Venice in Mortimer’s 
gondola. He read how she had begun to like him, 
in spite of doubts and hesitations : how she had 
wondered whether a lady ought to let herself grow so 
fond of a man so far beneath her in rank and station : 
how she had stifled her doubts by saying to herself 
he had genius and refinement and a poet’s nature ; 
he was a gentleman, after all, a true gentleman at 
heart, a gentleman of the truest in feelings and 
manners. Then he saw how the evidences of her 
liking grew thicker and thicker from page to page, 
till they deepened at last into shame-faced self-con- 
fessions of maiden love, and culmmated in the end 
into that one passionate avowal, ‘ Sailor or no sailor, 
oh, I love him, I love him. I love him with all my 
heart ; and if he asks me, I shall accept him.’ 

When he came to that page, Kathleen saw by the 
moisture rising thick in his eyes what point he had 
reached. He looked across at her imploringly. 

‘ Oh, Kathleen, I may ?’ he cried, trying to seize 
her hand. But still Kathleen waved him back. 

‘ No, not yet,’ she said in a tone half relenting, 
half stern. ‘ Not yet. You must read it all through. 
You must let me prove myself innocent.’ 

She said it proudly yet tenderly, for she kneiv the 

18 


274 


AT MARKET VALUE 


proof was there. And after all she had suffered, she 
did not shrink for a moment from letting - Arnold so 
read her heart’s inmost secret. 

He read on and on. Then came at last that day 
when the Canon recognised him in the side-canal by 
San Giovanni e Paolo. Arnold drew a deep breath. 

‘ It was he who found me out, then ?’ he said, for 
the first time admitting his long-hidden identity. 

‘Yes, it was he who found you out,’ Kathleen 
answered, leaning forward. ‘And I saw at once he 
was right; for I had half suspected it myself, of 
course, from those words of yours he quoted. And, 
Arnold, do you know, the first thought that crossed 
my mind — for I’m a woman, and have my prejudices 
— the first thought was this : “ Oh, how glad I am to 
think I should have singled him out for myself, out of 
pure, pure love, without knowing anything of him ; 
yet that he should turn out in the end to be so great a 
gentleman of so ancient a lineage.” And the second 
thing that struck me was this : ‘ Oh, how sorry I am, 
after all, I should have surprised his secret ; for he 
wished to keep it from me ; he wished perhaps to sur- 
prise me ; and it may grieve him that I should have 
learnt it like this, prematurely.” But I never knew 
then what misery it was to bring upon me.’ 

‘Kathleen,’ the young man cried imploringly, ‘I 
must ! I must this time !’ and he stretched his arms 
out to her. 

‘ No,’ Kathleen cried, still waving him back, but 
flushing rosy red ; ‘ I am not yet absolved. You must 
read to the very end. You must know the whole truth 
of it.’ 

Again Arnold read on ; for Kathleen had written at 
great length the history of that day, that terrible day, 


THE MEETING 


275 


much blotted with tears on the pages of her diary, 
when the Canon went away, and her mother ‘ spoiled 
all ’ with Arnold Willoughby. When he came to that 
heart-broken cry of a wounded spirit, Arnold rose from 
his place ; he could contain himself no longer. With 
tears in his eyes, he sprang towards her eagerly. 

This time, at last, Kathleen did not prevent him. 

‘ Am I absolved ?’ she murmured low, as he caught 
her in his arms and kissed her. 

And Arnold, clasping her tight, made answer 
through his tears : 

‘ My darling, my darling, it’s I, not you, who stand 
in need of absolution. I have cruelly wronged you. 
I can never forgive myself for it.’ 

‘ But I can forgive you,’ Kathleen murmured, nest- 
ling close to him. 

For some minutes they sat there, hand in hand, 
supremely happy. They had no need for words in that 
more eloquent silence. Then Arnold spoke again, very 
sadly, with a sudden reminder of all that had hap- 
pened meanwhile : 

‘ But, Kathleen, even now, I ought never to have 
spoken to you. This is only to ease our souls. Things 
are still where they were for every other purpose. 
My darling, how am I to tell you it ? I can never 
marry you now. I have only just recovered you, to 
lose you again instantly.’ 

Kathleen held his hand in hers still. 

‘ Why so, dear ?’ she asked, too serenely joyous now 
(as is a woman’s wont), at her love recovered, to trouble 
her mind much about such enigmatic sayings. 

‘ Because,’ Arnold cried, ‘ I have nothing to marry 
you with ; and this maimed hand — it was crushed in 
an iceberg accident this summer — I’ll tell you all 


276 


AT MARKET VALUE 


about it by-and-by — makes it more impossible than 
ever for me to earn a livelihood. Oh, Kathleen, if I 
hadn’t been carried away by my feelings, and by what 
that dear good fellow Mortimer told me — he showed 
me your letter — I would never have come back like 
this to see you without some previous explanation. I 
would have written to tell you beforehand how hope- 
less it all was, how helpless a creature was coming 
home to claim you.’ 

‘ Then, I’m glad they did carry you away,’ Kathleen 
answered, smiling ; ‘ for I’d ten thousand times rather 
see you yourself, Arnold, now everything’s cleared up, 
than any number of letters.’ 

‘ But everything’s not cleared up ; that’s the worst 
of it,’ Arnold answered somewhat gloomily. ‘ At least 
as far as I’m concerned,’ he went on in haste, for he 
saw a dark shadow pass over Kathleen’s sweet face. 

‘ I mean, I’m afraid I’m misleading you myself now. 
You think, dear Kathleen, the man who has come 
home to you is an English peer; practically and 
financially, he’s nothing of the sort. He’s a sailor at 
best, or not even a sailor, but the merest bare wreck | 
of one. Here, a sheer hulk, stands Arnold Wil- : 
loughby. You probably imagine I got rid of my 
position and masqueraded in seamen’s clothes out of i 
pure, pure fun, only just to try you. I did nothing 
of the sort, my darling. I renounced my birthright, , 
once and for ever, partly on conscientious grounds, | 
and partly on grounds of personal dignity. I may i 
have done right ; I may have done wrong ; but, at any 
rate, all that’s long since irrevocable. It’s past and i 
gone now, and can never be reconsidered. It’s a i 
closed chapter. I was once an Earl : I am an Earl ;] 
no longer. The man who asks you — who dare hardly i 


THE MEETING 


277 


ask you — for your love to-day, is, to all intents and 
purposes, mere Arnold Willoughby, a common sailor, 
unfit for work, and an artist too hopelessly maimed 
for any further painting. In short, a man without 
fixed occupation or means of livelihood.’ 

Kathleen clung to his hand. ‘I knew as much 
already,’ she answered bravely, smoothing it with her 
own. ‘ That is to say, at least, I knew from the day 
you went away from Venice, and still more from the 
day when your cousin’s claim was allowed to hold 
good by the House of Lords, that you had relinquished 
once for all your right to the peerage. I knew a man 
so just and good as you are would never allow your 
cousin to assume the title as his own, and then rob 
him again of it. I knew that if ever you came back 
to me, it would be as plain Arnold Willoughby, fight- 
ing your own battle on equal terms against the world ; 
and, Arnold, now you’re here, I don’t care a pin on 
what terms or under what name you come ; it’s 
enough for me to have you here again with me !’ 

‘ Thank you, Kathleen,’ Arnold said very low, with a 
thrill of deep joy. ‘ My darling, you’re too good to me.’ 

‘ But that’s not all,’ Kathleen went on with swim- 
ming eyes. ‘Do you know, Arnold, while you were 
away, what I wanted you to come back for most was 
that I might set myself right with you ; might make 
you admit I wasn’t ever what you thought me ; might 
justify my womanhood to you; might be myself once 
more to you. But see what a woman I am, after all ! 
Now you’re here, oh, my darling, it isn’t that that I 
think about, nor even whether or not you’ll ever be able 
to marry me ; all I think of is simply this — how sweet 
and delightful and heavenly it is to have you here 
again by my side to talk to.’ 


278 


AT MARKET VALUE 


She gazed at him with pure love in those earnest 
big eyes of hers. Arnold melted with joy. 

‘You speak like a true good woman, darling,’ he 
answered in a penitent voice. ‘ And now I hear you 
speak so, I wonder to myself how on earth I could ever 
have had the heart to doubt you.’ 

So they sat and talked. One hour like that was 
well worth those two years of solitude and misery. 


CHAPTEE XXVI. 

A QUESTION OF AUTHOBSHIP. 

And now that all was over, and her Arnold had come 
home to her, Kathleen Hesslegrave felt as if the rest 
mattered little. He was back ; he knew all ; he saw 
all ; he understood all ; he loved her on(?e again far 
more dearly than ever. Woman-like, she was more 
than satisfied to have her lover by her side ; all else 
was to her a mere question of detail. 

And yet the problem for Arnold was by no means 
solved. He had no way as yet of earning his own 
living ; still less had he any way of earning a living 
for Kathleen. Kathleen herself, indeed, happy enough 
to have found her sailor again, would have been glad 
to marry him as he stood, maimed hand and all, and 
to have worked at her art for him, as she had long- 
worked for Keggie ; but that, of course, Arnold could 
never have dreamed of. It would have been grotesque 
to give up the Axminster revenues on conscientious 
grounds, and then allow himself to be supported by a 
woman’s labour. Eufus Mortimer, too, ever generous 
and ever chivalrous, would willingly have done any- 


A QUESTION OF AUTHORSHIP 


279 


thing in his power to help them. But such help as 
that also Arnold felt to be impossible. He must fight 
out the battle of life on his own account to the bitter 
end ; and though this last misfortune of his crushed 
hand was an accident that might have happened to 
any sailor any day, it made him feel none the less 
that painful consciousness he had often felt before, of 
his own inferiority and comparative inability to do for 
himself what he saw so many of his kind doing round 
him on every side without apparent effort. He didn’t 
care to acknowledge himself a human failure. 

Of course, he had the fifty pounds he had received 
for his translation of the Italian manuscript ; but even 
Arnold Willoughby couldn’t live on fifty pounds for 
ever, though, no doubt, he could make it go at least 
as far as anyone else of his class could. And it was 
only a stray windfall, not a means of livelihood. What 
Arnold wanted, now the sea was shut against him, 
and painting most difficult, was some alternative way 
of earning money for himself, and, if possible, for 
Kathleen. As to how he could do that, he had for 
the moment no idea ; he merely straggled on upon his 
fifty pounds, spreading it out as thin as fifty pounds 
can be made to spread nowadays in this crowded 
Britain of ours. 

But if this problem caused anxiety to Arnold 
Willoughby, it caused at least as much more to Kufus 
Mortimer. As a rule, people who have never known 
want themselves realize but vaguely the struggles and 
hardships of others who stand face to face with it. 
They have an easy formula — ‘ Lazy beggars !’ — which 
covers for their minds all possible grounds of failure 
or misfortune in other people. (Though they are not 
themselves always so remarkable for their industry.) 


28 o 


AT MARKET VALUE 


But Eufus Mortimer, with his delicately sensitive’ 
American nature — as sensitive in its way as Arnold’s 
own — understood to the full the difficulties of the 
case; and having made himself responsible to some 
extent for Arnold’s and Kathleen’s happiness by 
bringing them together again, gave himself no little 
trouble, now that matter was arranged, to seek some 
suitable work in life for Arnold. 

This, however, as it turned out, was no easy matter. 
Even backed up by Eufus Mortimer’s influence, Arnold 
found there were few posts in life he could now 
adequately fill; while the same moral scruples that 
had made him in the first instance renounce altogether 
the Axminster property continued to prevent his ac- 
cepting any post that he did not consider an honest 
and useful one. It occurred to Mortimer, therefore, 
one day when he met Eeggie on Kathleen’s doorstep, 
and, entering, found Kathleen herself with every sign 
of recent tears, that one of the first ways of helping 
the young couple would be the indirect one of getting 
rid of Eeggie. He suspected that young gentleman of 
being a perpetual drain upon Kathleen’s resources, 
and he knew him to have certainly no such conscien- 
tious scruples. So, after a little brief telegraphic 
communication with his firm in America, he sent one 
morning for Eeggie himself, ' on important business ’ ; 
and Eeggie, delighted by anticipation at the phrase, 
put on his best necktie and his onyx links, and drove 
round (in a hansom) to Mortimer’s house in Great 
Stanhope Street. 

Mortimer plunged at once into the midst of affairs. 

‘ Suppose you were to get a post of three hundred 
and fifty a year in America, would you take it ?’ he 
inquired. 


A QUESTION OF AUTHORSHIP 281 

Eeggie brightened at the suggestion. 

‘ Pounds, not dollars, of course?’ he answered with 
characteristic caution, for where money was concerned, 
Eeggie’s mind was pure intellect. 

Eufus Mortimer nodded. 

‘ Yes, pounds, not dollars,’ he said. ‘ A clerk’s post 
in my place in the States ; raihvay engineering works, 
you know. We control the business.’ 

‘ It might suit me,’ Eeggie answered with great de- 
liberation, impressed with the undesirability of letting 
himself go too cheap. ‘ Three hundred and fifty ; or, 
say, four hundred.’ 

‘ I beg your pardon,’ Eufus Mortimer interposed 
with bland decision. ‘ I said three hundred and fifty. 
I did not say four hundred. And the questions before 
the house are simply these two — first, whether you 
care to accept such a post or not; and, second, 
whether I shall find you’re qualified to accept it.’ 

‘Oh, I see,’ Eeggie answered, taken aback; for he 
had not yet met Eufus Mortimer in this his alter- 
native character as the stern capitalist, ‘Where- 
abouts is your place ? So much depends upon the 
locality.’ 

‘ It’s in Philadelphia,’ Mortimer answered, smiling. 

He could see at a glance Eeggie was hesitating as to 
whether he could tear himself away from the Gaiety, 
and the dear boys, and the gross mud-honey of town 
in general, to emigrate to America. 

Eeggie held his peace for a moment. He w^as calcu- 
lating the pros and cons of the question at issue. It 
spelt expatriation, of course ; that he recognised at 
once ; so far from the theatres, the racecourses, the 
Park, the dear boys of the Tivoli, and Charlie Owen. 
But, still, he was young, and he would always have 


282 


AT MARKET VALUE 


Florrie. Perhaps there might be ‘ life ’ even in Phila- 
delphia. 

‘Is it a big town?’ he asked dubiously, for his 
primseval notions of American geography were dis- 
tinctly hazy. 

‘ The third biggest in the Union,’ Mortimer 
answered, eyeing him hard. 

‘ In the what ?’ Peggie repeated, somewhat stag- 
gered at the sound ; visions of some huge workhouse 
rose dimly in the air before his mental view. 

‘ In the United States,’ Mortimer answered with a 
compassionate smile. ‘ In America, if it comes to 
that. The third biggest in America. About three- 
quarters the size of Paris. Will a population of a 
million afford scope enough for you ?’ 

‘ It sounds well,’ Peggie admitted. ‘ And I suppose 
there are amusements there— something to occupy a 
fellow’s mind in his spare time ? or else I don’t put 
much stock in it.’ 

‘ I think the resources of Philadelphia will be equal 
to amusing you,’ Mortimer answered grimly. ‘ It’s a 
decent-sized village.’ He didn’t dwell much upon the 
converse fact that Peggie would have to work for his 
three hundred and fifty. ‘ My people in America will 
show him all that soon enough,’ he thought. ‘ The 
great thing just now is to get him well out of England, 
by hook or by crook, and leave the way clear for that 
angel and Willoughby.’ 

For Pufus Mortimer, having once espoused Arnold 
Willoughby’s cause, was almost as anxious to see him 
satisfactorily settled in life as if it had been his own 
love-affairs he was working for, not his most dangerous 
rival’s. 

The offer was a tempting one. After a little hum- 


A QUESTION OF AUTHORSHIP 


283 


mirig and hawing, and some explanation by Mortimer 
of the duties of the situation — the last thing on earth 
that Eeggie himself would ever have troubled his head 
about under the circumstances — the young man about 
town at last consented to accept the post offered to 
him, and to ship himself forthwith from his native 
land, with Florrie in tow, at Kufus Mortimer’s 
expense, by an early steamer. 

‘A town of a million people,’ he observed to Florrie, 
*must have decent amusements, even in America.’ 

And now that that prime encumbrance was clear 
out of the way, Mortimer’s next desire was to find 
something to do for Arnold, though Arnold was 
certainly a most difficult man to help in the matter 
of an appointment. That horrid conscience of his. 
was .always coming in to interfere with everything. 
Mortimer and Kathleen had ventured to suggest, 
indeed, that under these altered circumstances, when 
his hand made it almost impossible for him to get 
work of any sort, he should disclose his personality 
to the new Lord Axminster, and accept some small 
allowance out of the Membury Castle property. But 
against that suggestion Arnold stood quite firm. 

‘ No, no,’ he said ; ‘ I may live or I may starve ; but 
I won’t go back upon my whole life and principles. I 
gave up my property in order that I might live by my 
own exertions ; and by my own exertions I will live, or 
go to the wall manfully. I don’t demand now that I 
should earn my livelihood by manual labour, as I 
once desired to do. Under these altered conditions, 
having lost the use of my hand in the pursuit of an 
honest trade for the benefit of humanity, I’m justified, 

I believe, in earning my livelihood in any way that 
my fellow-creatures are willing to pay me for; and I’ll 


284 


AT MARKET VALUE 


take in future any decent work that such a maimed 
being as myself is fitted for. But I won’t come down 
upon my cousin Algy. It wouldn’t be fah’ ; it 
wouldn’t be right ; it wouldn’t be consistent ; it 
wouldn’t be honest. I’m dead by law ; dead by the 
decision of the highest court in the kingdom; and 
dead I will remain for all legal purposes. Algy has 
succeeded to the title and estates in that belief, which 
I have not only permitted him to hold, but have de- 
liberately fostered. For myself and all who come 
after me, I have definitely got rid of my position as a 
peer, and have chosen to become a common sailor. If 
I were to burst in upon Algy now with proof of my 
prior claim, I would upset and destroy his peace of 
mind ; make him doubt for the position and prospects 
of his children ; and burden him with a sense of inse- 
curity in his tenure which I have no right in the 
world to disturb ^is life with. When once I did it, I 
did it once for all ; to go back upon it now would be 
both cruel and cowardly.’ 

‘You’re right,’ Kathleen cried, holding his hand in 
her own. ‘ I see you’re right, my darling ; and if ever 
I marry you, I will marry you clearly on that under- 
standing, that you are and always will be plain Arnold 
Willoughby.’ 

So Eufus Mortimer could do nothing but watch and 
wait. Meanwhile, Arnold went round London at the 
pitiful task of answering advertisements for clerks and 
other small posts, and seeking in vain for some light 
employment. Winter was drawing on ; and it became 
clearer and clearer each day to Mortimer that in 
Arnold’s present state of health he ought, if possible, 
to spend the coldest months in the South of Europe. 
But how get him to do it ? That was now the puzzle. 


A QUESTION OF AUTHORSHIP 285 

Mortimer was half afraid he had only rescued Kath- 
leen’s lover, and brought them together again in peace, 
in order to see him die with his first winter in 
England. And it was no use to urge upon him the 
acceptance of a temporary loan, or even to ask him to 
go abroad on the strength of that fifty pounds ; for, as 
matters now stood, Arnold was so anxious to husband 
his funds to the utmost and to look out for future work, 
that nothing would induce him to move away from 
London. 

While things were in this condition, Kufus was 
startled one day, as he sat in his padded armchair in 
a West-End club, reading a weekly paper, to see 
Arnold Willoughby’s name staring him full in the 
face from every part of a two-column article. He 
fixed his eyes on the floating words that seemed to 
dance before his sight. ‘If this is a first attempt,’ 
the reviewer said, ‘ we must congratulate Mr. Wil- 
loughby upon a most brilliant de^ut in the art of 
fiction.’ And again : ‘We know not whether the 
name of “ Arnold Willoughby ” is the writer’s real 
designation, or a mere nom de guerre ; but in any case 
we can predict for the entertaining author of “An 
Elizabethan Seadog ” a brilliant career as a writer of 
the new romance of history.’ — ‘ Mr. Willoughby’s 
style is careful and polished; his knowledge of the 
dialect of the sea is “peculiar and extensive”; while 
his fertility of invention is really something stupen- 
dous. We doubt, indeed, whether any Elizabethan 
sailor of actual life could ever have described his 
Spanish adventures in such graphic and admirable 
language as Mr. Willoughby puts into the mouth of 
his imaginary hero ; but that is a trivial blemish : 
literature is literature : as long as the narrative im- 


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poses upon the reader for the moment, which it 
undoubtedly does, we are ready to overlook the un- 
historical character of the thrilling details, and the 
obvious improbability that such a person as Master 
John Collingham of Holt in Norfolk would have been 
able to address the Council of Ten with such perfect 
fluency in “very choice Italian.” ’ 

Eufus Mortimer laid down the paper in a tumult of 
delight. Here at last he saw a chance for the solution 
of the problem of Arnold’s future. Though art had 
failed him, he might live by literature. To be sure, 
one swallow doesn’t make a summer, nor one good 
review (alas !) the fortune of a volume. But Eufus 
Mortimer didn’t know that ; and he felt sure in his 
heart that a man who could write so as to merit such 
praise from one of the most notoriously critical of 
modern organs, must certainly be able to make a 
living by his pen, even if he had only a left hand 
left wherewith to wield it. So off he rushed at 
once in high glee to Arnold Willoughby’s, only 
stopping on the way to buy a copy of the review at 
the railw^ay bookstall in the nearest underground 
station. 

When he reached Arnold’s lodgings, now removed 
mL\ph further West, near Kathleen Hesslegrave’s 
rooms, he hurried upstairs in a fervour of good spirits, 
quite rejoiced to be the first to bring such happy 
tidings. Arnold read the review hastily; then he 
looked up at Mortimer, who stood expectant by ; and 
his face grew almost comical in its despair and de- 
spondency. 

‘ Oh, this is dreadful !’ he exclaimed under his 
breath. ‘ Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful !’ 

‘ Dreadful ?’ Mortimer interposed, quite taken aback. 


A QUESTION OF AUTHORSHIP 


287 


‘ Why, Willoughby, I was delighted to be the first to 
bring it to you. I thought you’d be so awfully glad 
to see it. What on earth do you disapprove of ? It’s 
all so favourable.’ 

Did the man expect mere fulsome adulation ? 

^ Favourable ? Oh yes,’ Arnold answered ; ‘it’s 
favourable enough, for that matter : but just look 
how they treat it ! In spite of my repeated and re- 
iterated statement that the manuscript was a genuine 
Elizabethan document, they insist on speaking of it as 
an original romance, and attributing the authorship 
to me, who only translated it. They doubt my word 
about it !’ 

‘But that doesn’t matter much,’ Mortimer cried, 
severely practical, ‘ as long as attention is drawn to 
the work. It’ll make the book sell ; and if ever you 
should want to write anything else on your own 
account, it’ll give you a better start and secure you 
attention.’ 

‘ I don’t want attention under false pretences,’ 
Arnold retorted. ‘ One doesn’t like to be doubted, 
and one doesn’t want to get credit for work one hasn’t 
done. I should hate to be praised so. It’s only the 
translation that’s mine. I’ve none of these imagina- 
tive gifts the critic credits me with. Indeed, I’ve half 
a mind to sit down this minute to write and explain 
that I don’t deserve either their praise or their cen- 
sure.’ 

From this judicious course Mortimer did not seek 
to dissuade him ; for, being an American born, he 
thoroughly understood the value of advertisement ; 
and he knew that a lively correspondence on the 
authenticity of the book could not fail to advertise it 
better than five hundred reviews, good, bad, or indif- 


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ferent. So he held his peace, and let Arnold do as he 
would about his reputation for veracity. 

As they were talking it over, however, the door 
opened once more, and in rushed Kathleen, brimming 
over with excitement, and eager to show Arnold an- 
other review which she had happened to come across 
in a daily paper. 

Arnold took it up and read it. His face changed 
as he did so; and Mortimer, who looked over his 
shoulder as he read, could see that this review, too, 
contained precisely the same cause of complaint, from 
Arnold’s point of view, as the other one — it attributed 
the book, as an original romance, to the transcriber 
and translator, and complimented him on his brilliant 
and creative imagination. Here was indeed a diffi- 
culty. Arnold could hardly show Kathleen the same 
distress at the tone of the notice which he had shown 
Eufus Mortimer; she came in so overflowing with 
womanly joy at his success that he hadn’t the heart 
to damp it ; so he tried his best to look as if he liked 
it, and said as little about the matter, either way, as 
possible. 

Mortimer, however, took a different view of the 
situation. 

‘ This is good,’ he said ; ‘ very good. These two 
articles strike the keynote. Your book is certainly 
going to make a success. It will boom through 
England. I’m sorry now, Willoughby, you sold the 
copyright for all time outright to them.’ 


CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES 


289 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES. 

This is an age of booms. Institution and name have 
come over to us from America. When a thing 
succeeds at all, it succeeds, as a rule, to the very top 
of its deserving. So in a few weeks’ time it was 
abundantly clear that ‘ An Elizabethan Seadog ’ was 
to be one of the chief booms of the publishing season. 
Everybody bought it ; everybody read it ;• everybody 
talked about it. Conan Doyle and Rudyard Kipling 
stood trembling for their laurels. And to this result 
Arnold Willoughby himself quite unconsciously con- 
tributed by writing two or three indignant letters to 
papers that reviewed the book as his own production, 
complaining of the slight thus put upon his veracity. 
Of course he would have been wholly incapable of in- 
venting this idea as an advertising dodge ; but he 
wrote with such earnestness in defence of his own true 
account of his antiquarian find, that everybody read 
his passionate declarations with the utmost amuse- 
ment. 

‘ He’s immense !’ Mr. Stanley remarked, overjoyed, 
to his partner, Mr. Lockhart. ‘ That man’s immense. 
He’s simply stupendous. What a glorious liar ! By 
far the finest bit of fiction in the whole book is that 
marvellously realistic account of how he picked up the 
manuscript in a small shop in Venice ; and now he 
caps it all by going and writing to the Times that it’s 
every word of it true, and that, if these implied 
calumnies continue any longer, he will be forced at 
last to vindicate his character by a trial for libel ! 

19 


290 


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Delicious ! delicious ! It’s the loveliest bit of advertis- 
ing I’ve seen for years ; and just to think of his 
getting the Times to aid and abet him in it !’ 

‘But have you seen to-day’s Atlienmim ?’ Mr. Lock- 
hart responded cheerfully. — ‘ No ? Well, here it is, 
and it’s finer and finer. Their reviewer said last week, 
you know, they’d very much like to inspect the 
original manuscript of such a unique historical docu- 
ment, and humorously hinted that it ought to be 
preserved in the British Museum. Well, hang me if 
Willoughby doesn’t pretend this week to take their 
banter quite seriously, and proceed to spin a cock-and- 
bull yarn about how the original got lost at sea on a 
Dundee sealer ! Magnificent ! magnificent ! The un- 
blushing audacity of it ! And he does it all with such 
an air. Nobody ever yet equalled him as an amateur 
advertiser. The cheek of the man’s so fine. He’d 
say anything to screw himself into notoriety anyhow. 
And the queer part of it all is that his work’s quite 
good enough to stand by itself on its own merits 
without that. He’s a splendid story-teller. Only, he 
doesn’t confine the art of fiction to its proper limits.’ 

Whether it w^as by virtue of Arnold Willoughby’s 
indignant disclaimers, however, or of its intrinsic 
merits as a work of adventure, ‘ An Elizabethan 
Seadog ’ was all the rage at the libraries. Mr. Mudie, 
crowned Apollo of our British Parnassus, advertised 
at once a thousand copies. ‘ And. it’s so wonderful, 
you know,’ all the world said to its neighbour ; ‘ it 
was wTitten, they say, by a common sailor !’ When 
Arnold heard that, it made him almost ready to dis- 
close his real position in life ; for he couldn’t bear to 
take credit for extraordinary genius and self-education, 
when, as a matter of fact, his English diction was the 


CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES 


291 


net result of the common gentlemanly sojourn at 
Harrow and Oxford. But he was obliged to bite his 
lips over this matter in silence. The praise showered 
upon the book, he felt, was none of his own making ; 
half of it was due to Master John Collingham of Holt 
in Norfolk, whom nobody believed in ; and the other 
half was due to the actual facts of the Elizabethan 
narrative. Whatever little credit might accrue from 
the style and workmanship of the translation, Arnold 
recognised he obtained under false pretences as the 
self-taught genius, while as a matter of fact he had 
always possessed every possible advantage of birth, 
breeding, and education. So it came to pass by the 
irony of circumstance that he, the man who of all 
others desired to be* judged on his merits as a human 
being, got all the false credit of a book he had never 
written, and a difficulty surmounted which had never 
existed. 

The position positively preyed upon Arnold Wil- 
loughby’s spirits. He saw he was misunderstood. 
People took him for just the opposite of what he really 
was ; they thought him a clever, pushing, self-adver- 
tising adventurer — him, the sensitive, shrinking, self- 
depreciatory martyr to an over-exacting conscience. 
And there was no way out of it, except by ruining his 
cousin Algy’s position. He must endure it in silence, 
and stand the worst that people could say or think of 
him. After all, to be, not to seem, was the goal of his 
ambition ; what he was in himself, not what people 
thought of him, really mattered. There was one man 
on earth whose good opinion he desired to conciliate 
and to retain — one man from whom he could never 
escape, morning, noon, or night; and that man was 
Arnold Willoughby. As long as he earned the appro- 


292 


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bation of his own conscience, the rest was but a matter 
of minor importance. 

Nor did the boom promise to do Arnold much 
permanent or pecuniary good. To be sure, it gained 
him no small notoriety; but, then, notoriety was 
the very thing he most wished to avoid. London 
hostesses were anxious after their kind to secure the 
new lion for their ‘ at homes ’ and their garden 
parties ; and Eufus Mortimer and Kathleen Hessle- 
grave were besieged by good ladies, as soon as it was 
known they had made Arnold’s acquaintance at Venice, 
with vicarious invitations for him for dinner, lunch, or 
evening. But Arnold was not to be drawn. ‘ So very 
retiring, you know !’ people said ; ‘ doesn’t like to 
make himself cheap. Quite a recluse, Mr. Mortimer 
tells me. That’s often the way with these men of 
genius. Think so much of their favours ! Don’t 
want to let us every-day people have the benefit, of 
their society.’ But Arnold’s point of view was simply 
this — that if Canon Valentine had been able to 
recognise him, so might somebody else ; and therefore 
he held it best to avoid that great world he had fled 
long before, and to keep to his own little circle of 
artistic acquaintances. 

Meanwhile, the book made money. It was making 
money daily. And under these circumstances, it 
occurred to Mr. Stanley one morning to observe to his 
partner : 

‘ I say, Lockhart, don’t you think it’s about time 
for us to send a little cheque to that fellow Wil- 
loughby ?’ 

Mr. Lockhart looked up from his papers. 

‘ Well, you’re right, perhaps,’ he answered. ‘ He’s 
a first-rate man, there’s no doubt, and we had the 


CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES 


293 


book from him cheap. We gave him fifty pounds for 
it. We’ve made — let me see — I should say, seven 
hundred. Let’s send him a cheque for a hundred 
guineas. ’Pon my soul, he deserves it.’ 

‘All right,’ the senior partner answered, drawing 
out his cheque-book and proceeding to act at once upon 
the generous suggestion. 

Generous, I say, and say rightly, though it is the 
fashion among certain authors to talk about the mean- 
ness and stinginess of publishers. As a matter of 
observation, I should say, on the contrary, there are 
no business men on earth so just and so generous. In 
no other trade would a man who has bought an article 
for a fair price in the open market, and then has 
found it worth more than the vendor expected, feel 
himself called upon to make that vendor a free gift 
of a portion of his profits. But publishers often do 
it; indeed, almost as a matter of course, expect to 
do it. Intercourse with an elevating and ennobling 
profession has produced in the class an exceptionally 
high standard of generosity and enlightened self- 
interest. 

As soon as Arnold received that cheque, he went 
round with it at once, much disturbed, to Kathleen’s. 

‘ What ought I to do ?’ he asked. ‘ This is very 
embarrassing.’ 

‘ Why cash it, of course,’ Kathleen answered. ‘ What 
on earth should you wish to return it for, dear 
Arnold ?’ 

‘ Well, you see,’ Arnold replied, looking shamefaced, 

‘ it’s sent under a misconception. They persist in 
believing I ivrote that book. But you know I didn’t ; 
I only discovered and transcribed and translated it. 
Therefore, they’re paying me for what I never did. 


294 


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And as a man of honour, I confess I don’t see how I 
can take their money.’ 

‘ But they made it out of your translation, ’ Kathleen 
answered, secretly admiring him all the time in her 
own heart of hearts for his sturdy honesty. ‘ After 
all, you discovered the book ; you deciphered it ; you 
translated it. The original’s lost; nobody else can 
ever make another translation. The copyright of it 
was yours, and you sold it to them under its real 
value. They’re only returning you now’ a small part 
of what you would have made if you had published it 
yourself at your own risk ; and I think you’re entitled 
to it.’ 

Arnold was economist enough to see at a glance 
through that specious feminine fallacy. 

‘ Oh no,’ he answered with warmth. ‘ That’s not 
the fair way to put it. If I’d had capital enough at 
the time, and had published it myself, I would have 
risked my own money, and would have been fairly 
entitled to whatever I got upon it. But I hadn’t the 
capital, don’t you see ? and even if I had, I wouldn’t 
have cared to chance it. That’s what the publisher is 
for. He has capital, and he chooses to risk it in the 
publication of books, some of which are successes, and 
some of which are failures. He expects the gains on 
the one to balance and make up for the losses on the 
other. If he had happened to lose by the “ Eliza- 
bethan Seadog,” I wouldn’t have expected him to 
come down upon me to make good his deficit. There- 
fore, of course, when he happens to have made by it, 
I can’t expect him to come forward, out of pure 
generosity, and give me a portion of what are strictly 
his own profits.’ 

Kathleen saw he was right ; her intelligence went with 


CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES 


295 


him ; yet she couldn’t bear to see him let a hundred 
pounds slip so easily through his fingers — though she 
would have loved and respected him a great deal the 
less had he not been so constituted. ‘ But surely,’ 
she said, ‘ they must know themselves they bought it 
too cheap of you, or else they would never dream of 
sending you this conscience-money.’ 

‘No,’ Arnold answered resolutely : ‘ I don’t see it 
that way. When I sold them the book, fifty pounds 
was its full market value. I was glad to get so much, 
and glad to sell to them. Therefore, they bought 
it at its fair price for the moment. The money- 
worth of a manuscript, especially a manuscript by an 
unknown writer, must always be to a great extent 
a matter of speculation. I didn’t think the thing 
worth fifty pounds when I offered it for sale to Stanley 
and Lockhart ; and when they named their price, I 
jumped at the arrangement. If they had proposed to 
me two alternative modes of purchase at the time — 
fifty pounds down, or a share of the profits — I would 
have said at once : “ Give me the money in hand, 
with .no risk or uncertainty.” Therefore, how can I 
be justified, now I know the thing has turned out a 
complete success, in accepting the share I would have 
refused beforehand ?’ 

This was a hard nut for Kathleen. As a matter 
of logic — being a reasonable creature — she saw 
for herself Arnold was wholly right ; yet she 
couldn’t bear to see him throw away a hundred 
pounds, that was so much to him now, on a mere 
point of sentiment. So she struck out a middle 
course. 

‘ Let’s go and ask Mr. Mortimer,’ she said. ‘He’s 
a clear-headed business man, as well as a painter. 


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He’ll tell us how it strikes him from the point of view 
of unadulterated business.’ 

‘ Nobody else’s opinion, as mere opinion, would 
count for anything with me,’ Arnold answered quietly. 
‘ My conscience has only itself to reckon with, not 
anybody outside me. But perhaps Mortimer might 
have some reason to urge — some element in the 
problem that hasn’t yet struck me. If so, of course 
I shall be prepared to give it whatever weight it may 
deserve in forming my decision.’ 

So they walked round together to Eufus Mortimer’s 
London house. Mortimer was in his studio, painting 
away at an ideal picture of ‘ Love Self-slain,’ which 
was not, indeed, without its allegorical application to 
himself and Kathleen and Arnold Willoughby. For 
it represented the god as a winged young man, very 
sweet and sad-looking, mortally wounded, yet trying 
to pass on a lighted torch in his hands to a more 
fortunate comrade who bent over him in pity. Kath- 
leen took little notice of the canvas, however — for 
love, alas ! is always a wee bit selfish to the feelings of 
outsiders — but laid her statement of the case before 
Mortimer succinctly. She told him all they had 
said, down to Arnold’s last remark, that if Eufus 
had any new element in the problem to urge, he 
would be prepared to give it full weight in his 
decision. 

When she reached that point, Eufus broke in with 
a smile. 

‘ Why, of course I have,’ he answered. ‘ I’m a 
capitalist myself ; and I see at a glance the weak 
point of your argument. You forget that these pub- 
lishers are business men ; they are thinking not only 
of the past but of the future. Gratitude, we all know. 


CONSCIENTIOUS SCRUPLES 


297 


is a lively sense of favours to come. It’s pretty much 
the same with the generosity of publishers. As a 
business man, I don’t for a moment believe in it. 
They see you’ve made a hit, and they think you’re 
likely to make plenty more hits in future. They know 
they’ve paid you a low price for your book, and 
they’ve made a lot of money for themselves out of 
publishing it. They don’t want to drive away the 
goose that lays the golden eggs ; so they offer you a 
hundred pounds as a sort of virtual retaining fee — an 
inducement to you to bring your next book for issue 
to them, not to any other publisher.’ 

‘ That settles the thing then,’ Arnold answered 
decisively. 

‘ You mean, you’ll keep the cheque ?’ Kathleen 
exclaimed with beaming eyes. 

‘ Oh dear no,’ Arnold replied with a very broad 
smile. ‘ Under those circumstances, of course, there’s 
nothing at all left for me but to return it instantly.’ 

‘Why so?’ Kathleen cried, amazed. She knew 
Arnold too well by this time to suppose he would do 
anything but what seemed to him the absolutely right 
and honest conduct. 

‘ Why, don’t you see,’ Arnold answered, ‘ they send 
me this cheque always under that same mistaken 
notion that it was I who wrote the “ Elizabethan 
Seadog,” and therefore that I can write any number 
more such works of imagination ? Now, the real fact 
is I’m a mere translator — a perfectly prosaic every- 
day translator. I never so much as tried to write a 
story in my life ; and if they think they’re going to 
get future books out of me, and be recouped in that 
way, they’re utterly mistaken. I haven’t the faintest 
idea of how to write a novel. So it wouldn’t be fair 


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to accept their money under such false pretences. I 
shall send their cheque back to them.’ 

‘ Don’t do that,’ Mortimer said, laying one hand on 
his shoulder. ‘ Nobody ever knows what he can do 
till he tries. Why not set to work at a similar novel, 
and see what you can make of it ? If you fail, no 
matter ; and if you succeed, why, there you are ; your 
problem is solved for you. The “Elizabethan Seadog” 
would give you a fair start, right or wrong, wdth the 
reviewers ; and if you’ve anything in you, you ought 
to pull through with it.’ 

But Arnold shook his head. 

‘ No, no,’ he said firmly ; ‘ that would never do. It 
would be practically dishonest. I can’t describe 
myself as the author of the “ Elizabethan Seadog,” 
for that I’m not ; and if I call myself even the editor 
or translator, I should seem to be claiming a sort of 
indirect and suggested authorship to which I’ve no 
right. I must let the thing drop. I’m almost sorry 
now I ever began with it.’ 

* At any rate,’ Mortimer cried, ‘ come along with 
me now to Stanley and Lockhart’s.’ 

‘ Oh, I’ll come along with you, if that’s all,’ Arnold 
responded readily. ‘ I want to go round and return 
this cheque to them.’ 


CHAPTEK XXVIII. 

MORTIMER STRIKES HOME. 

When Arnold arrived at Stanley and Lockhart’s, it 
almost seemed to him as if the sun had gone back 
upon the dial of his lifetime to the days when he was 


MORTIMER STRIKES HOME 


299 


still an Earl and a somebody. True, the shop-boy of 
whom he inquired, in a timid voice, if he could see 
one of the partners, scarcely deigned to look up from 
his ledger at first, as he murmured, in the surly 
accent of the underling, ‘ Name, please ?’ But the 
moment the answer came, ‘Mr. Arnold Willoughby,’ 
the boy left off writing, awe-struck, and scrambling 
down from his high perch, opened the low wooden 
door with a deferential, ‘ This way, sir. I’ll ask if the 
head of the firm is engaged. — Mr. Jones, can Mr. 
Stanley see Mr. Arnold Willoughby ?’ 

That name was like magic. Mr. Jones led him on 
with attentive politeness. Arnold followed upstairs, 
as in the good old days when he was an unchallenged 
Earl, attended and heralded by an ushering clerk in a 
most respectful attitude. Even the American mil- 
lionaire himself, whom the functionaries at once 
recognised, scarcely met with so much honour in that 
mart of books as the reputed author of the book of the 
season. For Willoughby spelt money for the firm 
just that moment. And the worst of it all was, as 
Arnold reflected to himself with shame and regret, all 
this deference was being paid him no more on his own 
personal merits than ever, but simply and solely 
because the publishing world persisted in believing he 
had written the story, which as a matter of fact he 
had only deciphered, transcribed, and Englished. 

In the counting-house, Mr. Stanley met him with 
outstretched arms, metaphorically speaking. He 
rubbed his hands with delight. He was all bland 
expectancy. The new and rising author had come 
round, no doubt, to thank him in person for the 
cheque the firm had sent him by the last post of 
yesterday. 


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‘ Charmed to see you, I’m sure, Mr. Willoughby,’ 
the senior partner exclaimed, motioning him with one 
hand to the chair of honour ; ‘ and you too, Mr. 
Mortimer. Lovely weather, isn’t it? — Well, the 
reception your book has had both from press and 
public is flattering — most flattering. We are selling 
it fast still ; in fact, this very day I’ve given orders to 
pull off another thousand of the library edition. I’m 
sure it must be most gratifying to you. It’s seldom a 
first book comes in for such an ovation.’ 

Arnold hardly knew what to answer ; this cordiality 
flurried him ; but after a short preamble, he drew 
forth the cheque and explained in a very few words 
that he couldnH accept it. 

Mr. Stanley stared at him, and rang his little 
bell. 

‘ Ask Mr. Lockhart to step this way,’ he said, with 
a puzzled look. ‘ This is a matter to be considered by 
all four of us in council.’ 

Mr. Lockhart stepped that way with cheerful 
alacrity ; and to him, too, Arnold explained in the 
briefest detail why he had refused the cheque. The 
two partners glanced at one another. They hummed 
and hawed nervously. Then Mr. Lockhart said in 
slow tones : 

‘ Well, this is a disappointment to us, I confess, 
Mr. Willoughby. To tell you the truth, though we 
desired to divide the profits more justly than they 
were being divided by our original agreement, as is 
our habit in such cases, still, I won’t deny we had 
also looked forward to the pleasure of publishing other 
books from your pen on subsequent occasions.’ (Mr. 
Lockhart was a pompous and correct old gentleman, 
who knew how to talk in private life the set language 


MORTIMER STRIKES HOME 


301 


of the business letter.) ‘ We hoped, in point of fact, 
you would have promised us a second book for the 
coming season.’ 

Arnold’s face flushed fiery red. This persistent 
disbelief made him positively angry. In a few forcible 
words, he explained once more to the astonished 
publisher that he had not written ‘ An Elizabethan 
Seadog ’ ; and that he doubted his ability to write any- 
thing like it. In any case, he must beg them to take 
back their cheque, and not to expect work of any sort 
from him in future. 

The partners stared at him in blank astonishment. 
They glanced at one another curiously. Then Mr. 
Lockhart rose, nodded, and left the room. Mr. Stanley, 
left alone, engaged them in conversation as best he 
could, for a minute or two. At the end of that time a 
message came to the senior partner : 

‘ Mr. Lockhart says, sir, could you speak to him for 
one moment ?’ 

‘ Certainly,’ Mr. Stanley answered. — ‘ Will you 
excuse me a minute, if you please, Mr. Willoughby ? 
There’s the last review of your book ; perhaps you’d 
like to glance at it.’ And with another queer look he 
disappeared mysteriously. 

‘ Well,'’ he said to his partner, as soon as they were 
alone in Mr. Lockhart’s sanctum, ‘ what on earth does 
this mean? Do you suppose somebody else has 
offered him higher terms than he thinks he’ll get 
from us ? Jones and Burton may have bribed him. 
He’s a thundering liar, any way, and one doesn’t know 
what the dickens to believe about him.’ 

‘No,’ Mr. Lockhart replied confidently; ‘that’s 
not it, I’m sure, Stanley. If he were a rogue, he’d 
have pocketed our cheque without a word, and taken 


302 


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his next book all the same to the other people. It 
isn’t that, I’m certain, as sure as my name’s Lockhart. 
Don’t you see what it is? The fellow’s mad; he 
really thinks now he didn’t write the “ Seadog.” 
Success has turned his head. It’s an awful pity. 
He began with the story as an innocent deception ; he 
went on with it afterwards as an excellent advertise- 
ment ; now he’s gone off his head with unexpected 
triumph, and really believes he didn’t write it, but 
discovered it. However, it’s all the same to us. I 
tell you what we must do : ask him, if ever he discovers 
any more interesting manuscripts, to give us the first 
refusal of his translation or decipherment.’ 

But when they returned a few minutes later with 
this notable proposition, Arnold could only burst out 
laughing. 

‘No, no,’ he said, really amused at last. ‘I see 
what you think. Mr. Mortimer will tell you I’m as 
sane as you are. You fancy I’m mad; but you’re 
quite mistaken. However, I can honestly promise 
you what you ask — that if I have ever again any pub- 
lishing business to transact, I will bring my work 
first to you for refusal.’ 

So the interview ended. Comic as it was from one 
point of view, it yet saddened Arnold somewhat. He 
couldn’t help being struck by this persistent fate which 
made him all through life be praised or admired, not 
for what he really was or really had done, but for some 
purely adventitious, or even unreal, circumstance. He 
went away and resumed once more his vain search for 
work. But as day after day went by, and he found 
nobody ready to employ a practically one-armed man, 
with no recommendation save that of having served 
his time as a common sailor, his heart sank within 


MORTIMER STRIKES HOME 


303 


him. The weather grew colder, too, and his weak 
lung began to feel the chilly fogs of London. Worst 
of all, he was keeping Kathleen also in England ; for 
she wouldn’t go South and leave him, though her work 
demanded that she should winter as usual in Venice, 
where she could paint the range of subjects for which 
alone, after the hateful fashion of the present day, she 
could find a ready market. All this made Arnold not 
a little anxious, the more so as his fifty pounds, no 
matter how well husbanded, were beginning to run 
out and leave his exchequer empty. 

In this strait, it was once more Kufus Mortimer, 
their unfailing friend, who came to Arnold’s and Kath- 
leen’s assistance. He went round to Arnold’s rooms 
one afternoon full of serious warning. 

‘ Look here, my dear Willoughby,’ he said ; ‘ there 
is such a thing as carrying conscientious scruples to 
an impracticable excess. I don’t pretend to act up to 
my principles myself ; if I did, I should be compelled 
to sell all I have, like you, and give it to the poor, or 
their modern equivalent, whatever that may be, in the 
dominant political economy of the moment. But, 
somehow, I don’t feel inclined to go such lengths for 
my principles. I lock them up in a cabinet as interest- 
ing curiosities. Still, you, you know, rush into the 
opposite extreme. The past is past, and can’t, of 
course, be undone ; though I don’t exactly see that 
you were bound in the first instance quite so utterly 
to disinherit yourself — to cut yourself off with the 
proverbial shilling. But as things now stand, I think 
it’s not right of you merely for the sake of pampering 
your individual conscience — which, after all, may be 
just as much mistaken as anybody else’s conscience — 
to let Miss Hesslegrave live in such perpetual anxiety 


304 • AT MARKET VALUE 

on your behalf. For her sake, I feel sure, you ought 
to make up your mind to sacrifice to some extent your 
personal scruples, and at least have a try at writing 
something or other of your own for Stanley and Lock- 
hart. You could publish it simply under your present 
name as Arnold Willoughby, without reference in any 
way to the “Elizabethan Seadog and if, in spite of 
all your repeated disclaimers, people still persist in 
describing you as the author of the book you only 
translated, why, that’s their fault, not yours, and I 
don’t see why you need trouble yourself one penny 
about it.’ 

‘ I’ve thought of that these last few days,’ Arnold 
answered, yielding slightly ; ‘ and I’ve even begun to 
plan out a skeleton plot for a projected story; but, 
then, it’s — oh, so different from “ An Elizabethan Sea- 
dog”; a drama of the soul; a very serious perform- 
ance. I couldn’t really imagine anything myself in 
the least like Master John Collingham’s narrative. 
I’ve no taste for romance. What I think I might do 
is a story of the sad lives of the seafaring folk I have 
lived and worked among — a realistic tale of hard toil 
and incessant privation and heroic suffering. But all 
that’s so different from the Elizabethan buccaneer, 
that I don’t suppose any publisher would care to 
touch it.’ 

‘ Don’t you believe it,’ Mortimer answered with deci- 
sion. ‘ They’d jump at it like grizzlies. Your name 
would be enough now to make any book go. I don’t 
say more than one ; if your next should be a failure, 
you’ll come down like a stick, as you went up like a 
rocket. I’ve seen more than one of these straw fires 
flare to heaven in my time, both in literature and art ; 
and I know how they burn out after the first flare-up 


MORTIMER STRIKES HOME 


305 


— a mere flash in the pan, a red blaze of the moment. 
But, at any rate, you could try : if you succeeded, well 
and good ; if not, you’d at least be not a penny worse 
off than you are at present.’ 

‘ Well, I’ve worked up my subject a bit in my own 
head,’ Arnold answered more cheerfully; ‘and I 
almost think I see my way to something that might 
possibly stand a chance of taking the public ; but 
there’s the difficulty of writing it. What can I do 
with this maimed hand ? It won’t hold a pen. And 
though I’ve tried with my left, I find it such slow 
work as far as I’ve yet got on with it.’ 

‘ Why not have a typewriter ?’ Mortimer exclaimed, 
with the quick practical sense of his countrymen. 
‘ You could work it with one hand — not quite so quick 
as with two, of course, but, still, pretty easily.’ 

‘ I thought of that, too,’ Arnold answered, looking 
down. ‘ But — they cost twenty pounds. And I 
haven’t twenty pounds in the world to bless myself 
with.’ 

‘ If you’d let me make you a present of one ’ 

Mortimer began; but Arnold checked him with a 
hasty wave of that imperious hand. 

‘ Not for her sake ?’ the American murmured in a 
very low voice. 

And Arnold answered gently : ‘No, dear Mortimer, 
you kind, good friend — not even for her sake. There 
are still a few prejudices I retain even now from the 
days when I was a gentleman— and that is one of 
them.’ 

Mortimer rose from his seat. 

‘ Well, leave it to me,’ he said briskly. ‘I think I 
see a way out of it.’ And he left the room in haste, 
much to Arnold’s mute wonder. 


20 


3o6 


AT MARKET VALUE 


A few hours later he returned, bringing with him 
in triumph a mysterious paper of most legal dimen- 
sions. It was folded in three, and engrossed outside 
with big black letters, which seemed to imply that 
‘ This Indenture ’ witnessed something really impor- 
tant. 

‘ Now, all I want,’ he said in a most business-like 
voice, laying the document before Arnold, ‘ is just 
your signature.’ 

‘My signature!’ Arnold answered, with a glance at 
the red wafers that adorned the instrument. ‘ Why, 
that’s just the very thing I’m most particular about 
giving.’ 

‘ Oh, but this is quite simple, I assure you,’ 
Mortimer replied with a persuasive smile. • This is 
just a small agreement with Stanley and Lockhart. 
They covenant to pay you one hundred pounds down 
— look here, I’ve got the cheque m my pocket already 
— the merest formality — by way of advance on the 
royalties of a book you engage to write for them ; a 
work of fiction, of whatever sort you choose, length, 
size, and style to be left to your discretion. And 
they’re to publish it when complete, in the form that 
may seem to them most suitable for the purpose, 
giving you fifteen per cent, on the net price of all 
copies sold in perpetuity. And if I were you, Wil- 
loughby, I’d accept it offhand. And I’ll tell you what 
I’d do : I’d start off at once post-haste to Venice, 
where you’d be near Miss Hesslegrave, and where she 
and you could talk the book over together w^hile in 
progress.’ He dropped his voice a little. ‘ Seriously, 
my dear fellow,’ he said, ‘ you both of you look ill, 
and the sooner you can get away from this squalid 
village, I think, the better.’ 


MORTIMER STRIKES HOME 


307 


Arnold read over the agreement with a critical eye. 

‘ I see,’ he said, " they expressly state that they 
do not hold me to have written ‘‘ An Elizabethan 
Seadog,” but merely to have discovered, deciphered, 
and edited it.’ 

‘ Yes,’ Mortimer replied with a cheerful smile. ‘ I’m 
rather proud of that clause. I foresaw that that 
interminably obtrusive old conscience of yours would 
step in with one of its puritanical objections, if I didn’t 
distinctly stipulate for that exact proviso ; so I made 
them put it in ; and now I’m sure I don’t know what 
you can possibly, stick at ; for it merely provides that 
they will pay you fifteen per cent, on any precious 
book you may care to write ; and they’re so perfectly 
sure of seeing their money again, that they’ll give you 
a hundred pounds down on the nail for the mere pro- 
mise to write it.’ 

‘But suppose I were to die meanwhile,’ Arnold 
objected, still staring at it, ‘what insurance could they 
give themselves ?’ 

Kufus Mortimer seized his friend by the waist 
perforce ; pushed him bodily into a chair ; placed a 
pen in his left hand, and laid the document before 
him. 

‘ Upon my soul,’ he said, half humorously, half 
angrily, ‘ that irrepressible conscience of yours is 
enough to drive any sane man out of his wits. 
There ! not another word. Take the pen and sign. — 
Thank Heaven, that’s done. I didn’t ever think I 
could get you to do it. Now, before you’ve time to 
change what you’re pleased to call your mind, I shall 
rush off in a cab and carry this straight to Stanley 
and Lockhart. Sign the receipt for the hundred 
pounds at once. — That’s right ! One must treat you 


3o8 


AT MARKET VALUE 


like a child, I see, or there’s no doing anything with 
you. Now, I’m off. Don’t you move from your chair 
till I come back again. Can’t you see, you donkey, 
that if they want to be insured against the chance of 
your death, that’s their affair, not yours? and that 
they have insured themselves already a dozen times 
over with the ‘‘Elizabethan Seadog?” ’ 

‘ Stop, stop a moment,’ Arnold cried, some new 
scruple suggesting itself ; but Mortimer rushed head- 
long down the stairs without heeding him. He had a 
hansom in waiting below. 

‘ To Stanley and Lockhart’s,’ he cried eagerly, 
‘near Hyde Park Corner.’ And Arnold was left alone 
to reflect with himself upon the consequences of his 
now fairly irrevocable action. 

In half an hour, once more Mortimer was back, 
quite radiant. 

‘ Now, that’s a bargain,’ he said cheerily. ‘ We’ve 
sent it off to be duly stamped at Somerset House ; and 
then you can’t go back upon it without gross breach 
of contract. You’re booked for it now, thank 
Heaven. Whether you can or you can’t you’ve got 
to write a novel. You’re under agreement to supply 
one, good, bad, or indifferent. Next, you must come 
out with me and choose a typewriter. Wefll see for 
ourselves which is the best adapted to a man with one 
hand. And after that, we’ll go straight and call on 
Miss Hesslegrave ; for I shan’t be satisfied now till I’ve 
packed you both off by quick train to Venice.’ 

‘ I wonder,’ Arnold said, ‘ if ever fiction before was 
so forcibly extorted by brute violence from any man ?’ 

‘ I don’t know,’ Mortimer answered. ‘ And I’m 
sure I don’t care. But I do know this — if you try 
to get out of it now on the plea of compulsion, why. 


MORTIMER STRIKES HOME 309 

to prove you clearly wrong, and show you’re in every 
way a free agent, I’m hanged if I don’t brain you.’ 

As they went away from the shop where they had 
finally selected the most suitable typewriter, Arnold 
turned towards Cornhill. 

‘ Well, what are you up to now?’ Mortimer inquired 
suspiciously. 

‘ I was thinking,’ Arnold said with some little hesi- 
tation, ‘ whether I oughtn’t in justice to Stanley and 
Lockhart to insure my life for a hundred pounds, 
in case I should die, don’t you know, before I finished 
my novel.’ 

Next instant, several people in Cheapside were 
immensely surprised by the singular spectacle of a 
mild-faced gentleman in frock-coat and chimney-pot 
hat shaking his companion vigorously, as a terrier 
shakes a rat. 

‘ Now, look here, you know, Willoughby,’ the mild- 
faced gentleman remarked in a low but very decided 
voice; ‘ Fve got the whip-hand of you, and I’m com- 
pelled to use it. You listen to what I say. If you 
spend one penny of that hundred pounds — which I 
regard as to all practical intents and purposes Miss 
Hesslegrave’s, in any other way except to go to Venice 
and write this novel, which must be a really first-rate 
one — I’ll tell you what I’ll do : I’ll publicly reveal the 
disgraceful fact that you’re a British peer, and all the 
other equally disgraceful facts of your early life, your 
origin, and ancestry.’ 

The practical consequences of which awful threat 
was that by the next day but one Kathleen and Arnold 
were on their way South together, bound for their 
respective lodgings as of old in Venice. 


310 


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CHAPTEE XXIX. 

Arnold’s masterpiece. 

In spite of hard fare and occasional short commons, 
that winter at Venice was a happy one for Arnold. 
For Kathleen, it was simply the seventh heavens.^ 
Every day of it was pure gold. For women are not like 
men in their loves. If a man’s engaged, he pines and 
frets to get married ; he sees a goal ever beckoning 
him forward; whereas if a woman’s engaged, she is 
amply satisfied to sit down in peace with her lover by 
her side, to see him and to talk wfith him. That 
feminine joy Kathleen drank to the full through one 
delicious winter. What matter to her that perhaps 
at the end of it Arnold’s projected book might prove a 
dismal failure ? — in which case, of course, they would 
be plunged once more into almost as profound diffi- 
culties and doubts as ever. Meanwhile, she had 
Arnold. She lived in the present, as is the wont of 
women ; and she enjoyed the present a great deal too 
much to be seriously alarmed for that phantom, the 
future. 

Besides, she' had such absolute confidence in 
Arnold ! She knew he could write something ten 
thousand times better than the ‘ Elizabethan Seadog.’ 
That, after all, was a mere tale of adventure, well 
suited to the grown-up childish taste of the passing 
moment. Arnold’s novel, she felt certain, would be 
ever so much more noble and elevated in kind. Must 
not a man like Arnold, who had seen and passed 
through so many phases — who had known all the 
varied turns and twists of life, from the highest to the 


ARNOLD’S MASTERPIECE 


311 


lowest ; who had lived and thought and felt and acted 
— be able to produce some work of art far finer and 
truer and more filling to the brain 'than Master John 
Collingham, the ignorant bully of an obscure village 
in Elizabethan Norfolk? To be sure, Arnold, more 
justly conscious of his own powders and his own fail- 
ings, w^arned her not to place her ardent hopes too 
high ; not to credit him with literary gifts he didn’t 
possess; and, above all, not to suppose that know- 
ledge, or- power, or thought, or experience, would ever 
sell a book as well as novelty, adventure, and mere 
flashy qualities. In spite of all he could say, Kath- 
leen persisted in believing in Arnold’s story till she 
fairly frightened him. He couldn’t bear to fix his 
mind on the rude awakening that no doubt awaited 
her. 

For, after all, he hadn’t the slightest reason to 
suppose he possessed literary ability. His momentary 
vogue was altogether due to his lucky translation of a 
work of adventure, whose one real merit lay in the go 
and verve of its Elizabethan narrator. He had been 
driven against his will into the sea of authorship, for 
navigating which he felt he had no talent, by Kufus 
Mortimer, in dire conspiracy with Stanley and Lock- 
hart. Nothing but disastrous failure could possibly 
result from such an undertaking ; he dreaded to wake 
up and find himself branded by the entire critical 
press of England as a rank impostor. 

However, being by nature a born worker — a quality 
which he had inherited from Mad Axminster — once 
he had undertaken to supply Stanley and Lockhart 
with a novel unspecified, he worked at it with a will, 
determined to give them in return for their money the 
very best failure of which his soul was capable. With 


312 


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this intent, he plied his typewriter, one-handed, 
morning, noon, and night; while Kathleen often 
dropped in at^odd moments to write for him fr om 
dictation, and to assist him with her advice, her 
suggestions,*^ and’her criticism. 

~^~godd woman can admire anything the man of 
her choice may happen to do. To Kathleen, there- 
fore, that first callow novel of Arnold Willoughby’s — 
‘ A Romance of Great Grimsby ’ — was from its very 
inception one of the most beautiful, most divinely 
inspired, most noble works of art ever dreamt or 
produced by the human intellect. She thought it 
simply lovely. Nothing had yet been drawn more 
exquisite in its tender and touching delineation of 
the seafarer’s wife than Maggie Holdsworth’s char- 
acter ; nothing more stern or sombre or powerful than 
the figure of the gaunt and lean-limbed Skipper. It 
was tragedy to her — real high-class tragedy; when 
Arnold hinted gently how the Hebdomadal Scarifier 
would laugh his pathos to scorn, and how the Anti- 
quated Growler would find it ‘ dull and uninteresting, 
not to say positively vulgar,’ she thought it impossible 
to believe him. Nobody could read that grim story, 
she felt sure, without being touched by its earnestness, 
its reality, and its beauty. 

All that winter through, Arnold and his occasional 
amanuensis worked hard at the novel that was the 
man’s last bid for a bare subsistence. He felt it so 
himself ; if that failed, he knew no hope was left him ; 
he must give up all thoughts of Kathleen or of life ; 
he must creep into his hole, like a wounded dog, to 
die there quietly. Not that Arnold was at all of a 
despondent nature ; on the contrary, few men were so 
light and buoyant; but the difficulties he had en- 


ARNOLD'S MASTERPIECE 


313 


countered since he left off being an Earl made him 
naturally distrustful of what the future might have 
in store for him. Nevertheless, being one of the 
sort who never say die, he went on with his story 
with a valorous heart ; for was it not for Kathleen ? 
And if he failed, he thought to himself more than 
once, with just pride, he would have the consolation 
of knowing he had failed in spite of his best endeavour. 
The fault, then, would lie not with himself, but with 
nature. The best of us can never transcend his own 
faculties. 

Eufus Mortimer spent that winter partly in Paris, 
partly in Eome. He avoided Venice. Though his 
palazzo on the Grand Canal lay empty all that year, 
he thought it best not to disturb Arnold’s and Kath- 
leen’s felicity by interfering with their plans or 
obtruding his presence. But as spring came round, 
he paid a hasty visit of a few short days to the city 
that floats in the glassy Adriatic. It seemed like old 
times both to Arnold and Kathleen when Eufus 
Mortimer’s gondola, equipped as ever by the two 
handsome Venetians in maize-coloured sashes, called 
at the doors of their lodgings to take them out to- 
gether for their day’s excursion. In the evening, 
Eufus Mortimer dropped round to Kathleen’s rooms. 
Arnold was there by appointment ; he read aloud a 
chapter or two for Mortimer’s critical opinion. He 
chose the episode of the Skipper’s marriage; the 
pathetic passage where Ealph Woodward makes his 
last appeal to Maggie Holdsworth ; and the touching 
scene where Maggie at last goes forth, with her baby 
in her arms, in search of Enoch. 

‘ Isn’t it lovely !’ Kathleen exclaimed with her 
innocent faith, as soon as Arnold had finished. ‘ I 


314 


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tell Arnold he needn’t be afraid of its reception. This 
is ten times as fine as the “ Elizabethan Seadog.” ’ 

‘ I don’t quite feel certain,’ Mortimer answered, 
nursing his chin, and conscious of his responsibility ; 
he feared to raise their hopes by too favourable an 
opinion. ‘ I don’t seem to recognise it’s just the sort 
of thing the public wants. Doesn’t it lack dramatic 
interest ? You and I may admire certain parts very 
much ; and I confess there were passages that brought 
tears into my eyes ; but the real question is, will the 
world at large like it — will it suit the great public at 
Smith’s and Mudie’s ? We must remember that Wil- 
loughby’s a quite new author ; the very fact that the 
world expects from him something like the “Eliza- 
bethan Seadog ” may tell against this simple domestic 
story. My experience is, that when once a man has 
stood on his head to amuse the public, the public will 
never allow him to stand on his feet again. And 
that’s what I fear in this case ; the people who read 
Master John Collingham greedily may vote Arnold 
Willoughby slow and uninteresting.’ 

‘ Oh, Mr. Mortimer, how can you ?’ Kathleen 
exclaimed, quite horrified. 

‘He’s right, Kitty,’ Arnold answered (it was Arnold 
and Kitty nowadays between them). ‘I’ve felt that 
myself all along as I was writing it. The story’s so 
sombre. It’s better suited, I’m afraid, to the tastes of 
the generation that read “Adam Bede” than to the 
tastes of the generation that reads Eider Haggard and 
Conan Doyle and Eudyard Kipling. However, in 
patience must we possess our souls ; there’s no telling 
beforehand, in art or literature, how the British public 
may happen to look upon any new departure.’ And 
he went to bed that night in distinctly low spirits. 


ARNOLD'S MASTERPIECE 


315 


A week later the manuscript was duly conveyed to 
London by Arnold in person. Kathleen followed a 
few days after, out of deference to Mrs. Grund}^ 
Arnold was too shy or too proud to take the manu- 
script himself round to Stanley and Lockhart ; but 
Mortimer bore it thither for him in fear and trembling. 
Scarcely had Mr. Stanley glanced at the book, when 
his countenance fell. He turned over a page or two. 
His mouth went down ominously. 

' Well, this is not the sort of thing I should have 
expected from Mr. Willoughby,’ he said with frank- 
ness. ‘ It’s the exact antipodes, in style, in matter, in 
treatment, and in purpose, of the “ Elizabethan 
Seadog.” I doubt whether it’s at all the sort of book 
to catch the public nowadays. Seems a decade or 
two behind the times. We’ve got past that type of 
novel. It’s domestic, p urely. We’r e all on adventure 
now adays.’ 

‘ So I was afraid,’ Mortimer answered; ‘but, at any 
rate, I hope you’ll do the best you can for it, now 
you’ve got it.’ 

‘ Oh, certainly,’ Mr. Stanley answered, in no very 
reassuring voice. ‘ Of course, we’ll do our level best 
for it. We’ve bought it and paid for it — in part, at 
least — and we’re not likely, under those circumstances, 
not to do our level best for it.’ 

‘Willoughby retains an interest in it, you re- 
member,’ Kufus Mortimer went on. ‘ You recollect, I 
suppose, that he retains a fifteen per cent, interest in 
it ?’ 

‘ Oh, certainly,’ Mr. Stanley answered. ‘ I recollect 
perfectly. Only, I’m afraid, to judge by the look of 
the manuscript— which is dull at first sight, undeni- 
ably dull — he hasn’t much chance of getting more out 


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of it than the hundred pounds we’ve paid him in 
advance on account of royalties.’ 

This was disappointing news to Mortimer ; for he 
knew Arnold had spent a fair part of that hundred on 
his living expenses in Venice ; and where he was to 
turn in the future for support, let alone for the means 
to marry Kathleen, Mortimer could form no sort of 
conception. He could only go on hoping against 
hope that the book might * pan out ’ better than 
Stanley and Lockhart supposed — that the public 
might see things in a different light from the two 
trade experts. 

Three days later, Mr. Stanley came down to the 
office, much perturbed in spirit. 

‘ I say, Lockhart,’ he cried, ‘ I’ve been reading over 
this new thing of Willoughby’s — this “ Komance of 
Great Grimsby,” as he chooses to call it — what an 
odious title ! — and I must say I’m afraid we’ve just 
chucked away our money. He wrote the “ Seadog ” 
by a pure fluke, that’s where it is. Must have been 
mad or drunk or in love when he did it. I believe 
he’s really mad, and still sticks to it he discovered 
and transcribed that manuscript. He’s written this 
thing now in order to prove to us how absolutely 
different his own natural style is. And he’s proved 
it with a vengeance. It’s as dull as ditch-water. 
I don’t believe we shall ever sell out the first 
edition.’ 

‘ We can get it all subscribed beforehand, I 
think,’ his partner answered, ‘on the strength of the 
“ Seadog.” The libraries will want a thousand copies 
between them. And after all, it’s only the same thing 
as if he had taken the hundred pounds we offered him 
in the first instance. We shall be no more out of 


ARNOLD^S MASTERPIECE 


317 

pocket, if this venture fails, than we should have been 
if he’d accepted our cheque last summer.’ 

‘ Well, we’d better pull off only as many as we think 
the demand will run to,’ Mr. Stanley continued with 
caution. ‘ It’ll be asked for at first, of course, on the 
merits of the “ Seadog ” ; but as soon as people begin 
to find out for themselves what feeble trash it really 
is, they won’t want any more of it ! Poor pap, I 
I call it !’ 

So the great novel, which had cost Arnold and 
Kathleen so many pangs of production, came out in 
the end in i ts regu l ati on three volumes just like any 
__other. There was an initial demand for it, of course^ 
at Mudie’s ; that Arnold had counted upon ; anything 
which bore the name of the ‘editor’ of ‘An Eliza- 
bethan Seadog ’ on the title-page could hardly have 
fared otherwise. But he waited in profound anxiety 
for what the reviews would say of it. This was his 
own first book, for the ‘ Seadog ’ was but a transcript ; 
and it would make or mar him as an original author. 

Oddly enough, they had longer to wait for reviews 
than in the case of Arnold Willoughby’s first venture. 
It was the height of the publishing season ; editors’ 
tables were groaning with books of travel, and bio- 
graphies, and three-volume novels, and epochs of 
history, boiled down for the consumption of the laziest 
intellects. A week or two passed, and still no notice 
of the ‘ Eomance of Great Grimsby.’ At last, one 
afternoon, Arnold passed down the Strand, and stopped 
to buy an influential evening paper on the bare chance 
of a criticism. His heart gave a bound. Yes, there 
it was on the third page — ‘ Mr. Arnold Willoughby’s 
New Departure.’ 

He took it home with him, not daring to sit and read 


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it on the Embankment. The very first sentence chilled 
him. 

‘ When a man begins by doing good work, the public 
has a right to expect good work in future from him. 
Mr. Arnold Willoughby, or whatever gentleman chooses 
to veil his unknown personality under that obvious 
pseudonym, struck fresh ground, and struck it well, 
in his stirring romance of “An Elizabethan Seadog.” 
He would have done better to remember the advice 
^/which a Scotchman in the Gallery once gave to Boswell 
on a famous occasion: “ Stick to the coo, mon !” Mr. 
Willoughby, unfortunately, has not stuck to his coo. 
He has a distinct talent of his own for wild tales of 
adventure, in which he can well simulate a certain air 
of truth, and can reproduce the style of a bygone age 
with extraordinary fidelity and historical accuracy. 
But the higher pathos and the higher constructive 
faculty are altogether beyond the range of his not in- 
considerable powers. To put it frankly, his three- 
volume novel, in spite of obvious straining after the 
most exalted qualities, almost induces one to accept 
Mr. Willoughby’s own improbable story of the finding 
of his manuscript in a Venetian cook-shop, and to 
believe that he was really nothing more, after all, than 
the translator and editor of that excellent tale of 
buccaneering life in the Sixteenth Century.’ 

Arnold’s head reeled round. Still, he read on and 
on. It was all in the same strain. Not one word of 
cold praise for his poor little bantling ! The reviewer 
demolished him as though he were not a vertebrate 
animal. His plot was crude, ill-considered, and ridi- 
culous. His episodes were sometimes improbable, but 
oftener still impossible. His conversations were unreal ; 
his personages shadowy ; his picture of fisher-life melo- 


ARNOLD’S MASTERPIECE 319 

dramatic and unconvincing. It was plain he knew 
nothing at first hand of the sea. Everything in the 
book from beginning to end was bad. Bad, bad, bad — 
as bad as it could be. The reviewer could only hope 
that in his next venture Mr. Willoughby would return 
from this puerile attempt to put himself outside his 
own natural limitations to the proper sphere he had 
temporarily deserted. 

Arnold laid down the paper, crimson. Very new 
authors are affected by reviews. He knew it, he knew 
it ! He had been betrayed into attempting a task 
beyond his powders by the kindly solicitations of that 
good fellow Mortimer. For Mortimer’s sake, even 
more than his own, he felt it acutely. One thing he 
prayed — that Kathleen might not happen to see that 
review, and be made utterly miserable by it. He 
must try, if possible, to break his failure gently to 
her. 

He went out again, to call on her, and hint his 
despondency. After that, he thought he would go and 
see Stanley and Lockhart, to ask them how much they 
were losing by his novel. 

He walked along with burning cheeks. And as he 
passed Eufus Mortimer’s club, that clever young 
Vernon, who writes such stinging reviews for the 
evening papers, turned, with a smile, to the 
American. 

‘ There goes your friend Willoughby,' he said, with 
a wave of his cigarette. ‘ Have you seen what a 
dressing I’ve given that silly book of his in this 
evening’s Piccadilly ? “A Komance of Great Grimsby ’ ’ 
indeed! “A Drivel of Idiocy” he ought to have 
called it.’ 


320 


AT MARKET VALUE 


CHAPTEE XXX. 

WHAT ALWAYS HAPPENS. 

When Arnold reached Kathleen’s rooms, he found 
Mrs. Irving quietly seated there before him, while 
Kathleen herself was immensely excited about some- 
thing unknown that had happened in the interval. 

‘Have you seen the evening papers?’ she cried, 
almost as soon as he entered, rushing up and seizing 
his hand with sympathetic fervour. ‘ That dear Mrs. 
Irving, she’s just brought them round to me !’ 

‘ What papers ?’ Arnold answered, trembling in- 
wardly for her disappointment. Such friendliness was 
cruel. ‘ Not to-night’s Piccadilly V 

‘Oh dear no,’ Kathleen answered, unable any longer 
to restrain her delight. ‘ Who cares for the Pic- 
cadilly 'I The Rydc Park Gazette and to-morrow’s 
Athenceiim. Do look at them at once ! There are 
such lovely reviews in them !’ 

‘ Eeviews ?’ Arnold exclaimed, drawing a deep long 
breath. ‘ Oh, Kitty, of our book ?’ For it had been 
‘ ours ’ with both of them in every-day talk from its 
very beginning. 

‘ Yes, ours,’ Kathleen answered, everjoyed. ‘ And, 
oh, Arnold, I’m so proud. To think it’s your very, very 
own this time ! I shall always be so glad to remember 
I helped you write it !’ 

‘ Let me see them,’ Arnold cried, half mazed ; and 
Kathleen, with a glowing face, handed him over the 
papers. 

The poor fellow began, still tremulous, with the 
Hyde Park Gazette. How his heart beat fast, and 


WHAT ALWAYS HAPPENS 


321 


then stood still within him ! The heading alone was 
enough : ‘ Mr. Willoughby’s New Triumph.’ 

Once more the ground reeled under him, though in 
the opposite sense from the way it had reeled an hour 
or so before. He clutched a chair for support and 
sank into it, all dazzled. This was too, too splendid ! 

‘ Mr. Willoughby,’ the notice began, with journalistic 
stiffness, ‘ has scored a second success, far greater in 
its way than the success he scored over “An Eliza- 
bethan Seadog.” His new novel, though utterly unlike 
its popular predecessor, is as admirable in execution ; 
but it is infinitely superior in design and purpose. 
The change is fundamental. Mr. Willoughby’s new 
book strikes a far higher note, and strikes it firmly, 
clearly, definitely, with a hand of perfect mastery. 
His maiden effort had the merit of an exciting romance 
of action and adventure ; it belonged to the type now 
so unduly popular with the vast body of readers ; and 
our author showed us there that he could hold his 
own against any man living in the department of 
lurid historical fiction. He has done wisely now in 
revealing those profounder qualities of thought and of 
artistic workmanship which can only be adequately 
displayed in a more serious piece of psychological 
analysis. The result is most satisfactory. We must 
congratulate Mr. Willoughby on having escaped from 
thraldom to the foolish fancy of a passing day, on 
having abjured the fearful joys of gore that flows 
like water, and on having ventured to use his own 
great powers to the best and highest purpose in the 
production of a sterling and pathetic romance, far 
worthier of his gifts than his in many ways admirable 
“ Elizabethan Seadog.” ’ 

Arnold read on and on in a fervour of reaction. 

21 


322 


AT MARKET VALUE 


This was glorious ! magnificent ! Line by line the 
review revived in him all his belief in himself, all his 
belief in the reality of his own creations. And it 
flattered him profoundly. For it saw in his work 
those very qualities he himself had striven hardest 
with all his might' to put into it. That is the only 
kmd of praise a sensible man ever cares for ; he wants 
to he given credit for the merits he possesses, not for 
the merits he lacks : he wants to be approved of for 
producing the effects he actually aimed at. Arnold’s 
face glowed with pleasure by the time he had reached 
the end ; and as soon as he had finished that first 
flattering notice, Kathleen, smiling still more deeply, 
handed him the Athenceum. 

Arnold turned to the critical organ again with a 
vague sense of terror. The first few sentences com- 
pletely reassured him. The leading literary journal 
was more judicial, to be sure, and more sparing of its 
^approbation, than the penny paper, as becomes a 
gazette which retails itself Jo this day for an aristo- 
cratic threepence’; but the review, as he read on, gave 
Arnold no less pleasure and gratification than the 
other one. For he perceived in it before long a certain 
tone and style which form as it were the hall-mark of 
a very distinguished critic, to have gained whose suf- 
frages was indeed no small joy to him. For the first 
time in his life Arnold felt he was being appreciated 
for himself alone— for the work he had really and 
actually performed, not for his artificial position or for 
extraneous merit falsely attributed to him. 

As for Kathleen, glowing pink with delight, she 
stood glancing over his shoulder as he read, and 
watching with a thrill the evident pleasure in his face 
at each fresh word of approval. Her cup was very 


WHAT ALWAYS HAPPENS 


323 


full. At last he was appreciated ! As soon as he had 
finished, she turned, with a face all crimson, to her 
silver-haired friend. 

‘I must, Mrs. Irving!’ she cried, with a womanly 
gesture — ‘ I really must !’ And in a transport of joy 
and triumph, she flung her arms round him and 
kissed him fervently. 

‘I think,’ Mrs. Irving said, rising with a quiet smile, 
and setting the bonnet straight over those silver locks, 
‘ I’d better be going to look after some errands. — No, 
dear ; I can’t possibly stop any longer ; and I dare say 
you and Mr. Willoughby will have lots of things now 
to talk over quietly with one another.’ 

And so they did. Arnold felt, of course, that if one 
bad review didn’t make a chilling frost, neither did 
two good ones make an established reputation. Still, 
it did seem to him now as though the sky were 
clearing a bit ; as though it might be possible for him 
at last to marry Kathleen some time in the measurable 
future. They must wait and see, to be sure, how the 
book went off; but if it really succeeded, as a commer- 
cial venture, Arnold thought his path in life would 
henceforth lie tolerably smooth before him. 

So he waited a week or two, not daring meanwhile 
to go near Stanley and Lockhart’s, for fear of a dis- 
appointment. During the interval, however, Kathleen 
couldn’t help seeing for herself at the bookstalls and 
libraries abundant evidence that the ‘ Komance of 
Great Grimsby ’ was making its way rapidly in public 
favour. Wherever she went, people spoke to her of 
‘ Your friend Mr. Willoughby’s book — oh, charming, 
quite charming ! What a delightful man he must be 
to know — so clever ; and so versatile ! I wish you 
could bring him here.’ And when Kathleen answered 


324 


AT MARKET VALUE 


briefly, with a deep red spot on her burning cheek, 
that he didn’t care to go out, people murmured to 
themselves, half aside : ^ Ah, a little affectation ! 
He’ll get over that, of course, as soon as he ceases to 
be the lion of the moment. But it’s always so with 
lions. They’re invariably affected.’ For it was 
Arnold’s fate in life to be persistently credited with 
the virtues and vices alike that were most alien to his 
shy and retiring disposition. 

At the end of three weeks more, with a very 
nervous step, he went round by himself to Stanley 
and Lockhart’s. The moment he got inside the 
publisher’s door, however, he was no longer in doubt 
whether or not his book was really selling. The 
office-boy recognised him at once, and descended 
deferentially from his high bare stool, flinging the 
wooden barrier open wide with a respectful sweep for 
the man who had written the book of the season. 
Arnold went up in a maze to the senior partner’s 
room. Mr. Stanley, humming and bowing, received 
the new lion with much rubbing of hands and a very 
glowing countenance. 

‘ Selling, my dear sir ?’ he said in answer to Arnold’s 
modest inquiry. ‘ Why, it’s selling like wildfire. 
Biggest success of its kind since “ Eobert Elsmere.” 
I confess I certainly had my doubts at first ; I had my 
doubts : I won’t deny it. I thought, having once 
fixed your public with the first book you — edited ’ — 
Mr. Stanley, catching his breath, just saved himself 
with an effort from the peccant verb — ‘ you would do 
better to stick, in future, to the same kind of thing 
you’d made your original hit with. It was an experi- 
ment — an experiment. But you judged your own real 
talent more justly than I did. There can be no sort 


WHAT ALWAYS HAPPENS 


325 


of doubt now that your book has hit the mark. It’s 
being read all round. We’re going to press to-day 
with a third edition.’ 

Arnold’s face grew pale. 

‘A third edition!’ he murmured. This sudden 
success at last w^as almost too much for him. ‘ Well, 
I’m glad of it,’ he answered again, after a moment’s 
pause — ‘ very glad indeed ; for I’ve found life hard at 
times, and once or twice lately, since my hand got 
crushed, to tell you the plain truth, I’ve almost 
despaired of it.’ 

‘ Well, you won’t find it hard in future,’ the 
publisher said kindly, with a benignant smile. ‘ No 
despairing henceforward. Whatever you write after 
this will command its own market. We’re pleased to 
think, Mi% Willoughby, we were the first to encourage 
you. It’s a feather in our cap, as I said to Lockhart. 
Would you like a small cheque on account, say for a 
couple of hundreds ?’ 

‘ A couple of hundred pounds ?’ Arnold cried, taken 
aback. To have earned such a sum for himself as 
two hundred pounds seemed to him well-nigh in- 
credible. 

‘Why, yes,’ the man of business answered, with a 
good-humoured laugh. ‘ A great deal more than that 
must be due to you already. Let me see: three 
thousand at eighteen-and-six — h’m, h’m : exactly so. 
Judging by what we made on the last book we 
published (the sale of which, after the same length of 
time had elapsed, was barely two-thirds of yours), I 
should fancy, before you’ve done, your book ought to 
bring you in somewhere about two thousand five 
hundred.’ 

Arnold gasped for breath. Two thousand five 


326 


AT MARKET VALUE 


hundred pounds ! And all of his own making ! With 
that one maimed hand too ! For the first time in his 
life, he was positively proud of himself. 

‘There’s only one thing, Kitty,’ he said an hour or 
two later, as he sat holding her hand in her own 
pretty room in Kensington — ‘ only one thing that 
mars my complete happiness ; and that is the fact 
that I don’t feel quite sure whether such work as 
mine is of any use to humanity. I don’t feel quite 
sure whether a man can hold himself justified to the 
rest of his kind in living on the produce of labour like 
that, as he might if he were a sailor, now, or a shoe- 
maker, or a miner !’ 

‘ I do,’ Kathleen answered, with a woman’s simpler 
faith. ‘ I feel quite certain of it. What would life be 
worth, after all, without these higher tastes and these 
higher products — art, literature, poetry? It is they, 
and they alone, that give it its value. I thought to 
myself, as you were writing it and dictating it to me 
at Venice : “ How wrong it would be for this man, 
who can think things like those, and put his thoughts 
so beautifully, to throw away his gifts by doing 
common sailor’s work, that any ordinary workman 
with half his brains and a quarter of his sensitiveness 
could do a hundred times better, most probably, than 
he could !’ 

‘ Not better,’ Arnold exclaimed, correcting her 
hastily, and put on his mettle at once by this stray 
suggestion of inferiority in his chosen craft. ‘ I’m a 
tip-top mariner ! I don’t know whether I can paint ; 
and I don’t know whether I can write a novel worth 
the paper it’s printed on : but I do know I was always 
a first-rate hand at reefing a sail in dirty weather ; 
and the bo’sun used to say, “ Send Willoughby aloft, 


WHAT ALWAYS HAPPENS 


327 


cap’ll ; he’s the surest of the lot of ’em.” Till my 
hand got crushed, I could haul a sheet with the best 
man in England. My one consolation now is, that I 
lost it in the performance of my duty to the world ; 
and that so, having served my time, as it were, till 
accident maimed me, I’m at liberty to live on, like a 
sort of literary Chelsea pensioner, on whatever light 
work I can best turn the relics of my shattered 
hand to.’ 

‘ And I’m sure it’s good work, too,’ Kathleen per- 
sisted, unabashed, with a woman’s persistency. ‘ Work ^ 
that does good in the world quite as much as seal-oil, ^ 
or shoes, or coal, not only by giving pleasure to who- / ’ 
ever reads it, but also by making people understand [ 
one another’s difficulties and troubles better — break-\ ^ 
ing down barriers of class or rank, and so uncon-| 
sciously leading us all to be more sympathetic and) 
human to one another.’ 

‘ Perhaps so,’ Arnold answered. ‘ I hope it is so, 
Kitty !’ 

There was a long pause next, during which Kathleen 
stared hard at the empty fireplace. Then Arnold 
spoke again. 

‘After what Stanley and Lockhart told me,’ he said, 
soothing her hand with his own — ‘ can you see any s 
just cause or impediment, darling, why we two 
shouldn’t make it Wednesday fortnight ?’ j ^ 

Kathleen leaned forward to him with happy tears / ^ 
in her brimming eyes. ^ 

‘ None at all, dear Arnold,’ she answered, too happy 
for words, almost. ‘ The sooner now, I think, the 
better.’ 

They sat there long, hand in hand, saying all they 
said mutely — which is, after all, the best way to say 


328 


AT MARKET VALUE 


many things that lie deepest in the heart of humanity. 
Then Kathleen spoke again. 

‘ Only for one thing, dearest Arnold, do I wish you 
could have married me under your own real name. — 
No ; don’t start and misunderstand me. I don’t want 
to be a Countess ; I have no mean ambitions : I’d 
rather be Arnold Willoughby’s wife, who wrote that 
beautiful book, than ten thousand times over an 
English Countess. But I do wish the world could only 
have known how brave and how strong you are, and 
how much you have gone through for the sake of 
principle. I want it to know how you might at any 
time have put out your hand and reclaimed your true 
rank, and how, for conscience’ sake, you refused to 
do it. Many a time at Venice, this last long winter, 
when I saw you so poor and ill and troubled, I thought 
to myself : “ Oh, I wish he could only break through 
his resolve, and go back with a rush to his own great 
world again.” And then I thought, once more: “Oh 
no ; for if he could do that, he wouldn’t be the Arnold 
I love, and admire, and believe in so firmly : he is 
himself just in virtue of that ; and it’s for being 
himself that I love him so utterly.” And — it’s irra- 
tional, of course ; illogical ; absurd ; self-contradictory ; 
but I somehow do wish you could proclaim yourself 
to the world, so that the world might admire you as 
it ought and would— for never so proclaiming your- 
self !’ 

Arnold stooped down and kissed her. 

‘ My darling,’ he answered, smoothing her cheek, 
‘ if I have gained your love, that’s more than enough 
for me. What we are, not what we are taken for, is 
the thing that really matters. Most men, I suppose, 
are never truly known — not to the very heart and core 


WHAT ALWAYS HAPPENS. 


329 


of them — except by the oue woman on earth that 
loves them. I often wonder whether I did right in 
the first place ; whether I ought ever to have shifted 
all that responsibility and all that wealth to dispose 
of, on to the slioulders of my cousin Algernon, who 
is certainly not the wisest or best man to make use of 
them. But would I have used them better ? And 
once having done it, my Avay then was clear. There 
was no going back again. I shall be happy now in the > 
feeling that, left entirely to myself, and by my own ) 
work alone, I have so far justified my existence to / 
mankind that my countrymen are willing to keep me 
alive in comfort, for the sake of the things I can do ( 
and make for them. As the world goes, t hat’s th e one ) 
test we can have of our usefulness. And, KittyTl? I 
hadn’t done as I have done, Tshbuld never have met 
you; and then I should never have known the one 
woman on earth who is willing to take me, not for 
the guinea stamp, but for the metal beneath it — who 
knows and believes that the man’s the gold for a’ 
that!’ " 


THE END. 










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